Homes England

3. Mr M complains that Homes England took too long to issue the Deed of Postponement (the Deed) he asked it for so he could remortgage his home. He says part of the reason for the delay was that Homes England sent the Deed to an incorrect address.

4. Mr M says he was affected financially as he incurred higher mortgage rates because of the delay. He also took time and trouble to investigate the whereabouts of the Deed, and this caused him stress and worry.

5. He seeks financial compensation to resolve his complaint.

6. Mr M was approaching the end of his fixed-term mortgage and took steps to arrange a new one. As he was a Help to Buy customer, he needed to apply for the Deed to ensure the new mortgage remains the first charge on his property, with the Help to Buy equity loan being the second charge.

7. He submitted his application on 27 October 2022. Homes England posted the Deed on 6 December, but this was sent to an incorrect address. It reached his solicitor on 2 February 2023.

8. When Mr M complained to Homes England, it partly upheld his concerns but said it did not uphold it in full because it was not responsible for all of the delays and considered Royal Mail to be at fault for the incorrect delivery. Homes England did not offer any remedy for the service shortfalls it identified.

10. In or around August 2022, Mr M started the process of remortgaging his property. As he was a Help to Buy customer, he needed to apply for the Deed and receive this before he was able to complete the remortgage.

11. Although he started the process in August, it was not until 27 October that he (and his solicitors) had provided all the information needed for his application to be considered and the Deed provided.

12. Homes England explains that it aims to complete Deeds within six weeks of receiving all required information but says that it does not provide a guaranteed timescale. It notes that, as of November, it amended its guidance to be a minimum of six weeks owing to delays caused by Royal Mail’s industrial action.

13. On 6 December, Homes England says it sent the Deed to Target, and Royal Mail’s website showed this was delivered there the following day. Target was Homes England’s scheme administrator at the time.

14. Mr M’s solicitor contacted Target on 28 December to ask for an emailed copy of the Deed. Homes England was not contactable between 23 December and 3 January 2023, owing to a closedown over the Christmas period.

15. Once Homes England reopened, Target was able to look into the request. It found that the Deed had already been delivered. However, Target discovered that the name of the person who had signed for the delivery it was not a Target employee – it had been sent to an incorrect address.

16. On 12 January, the day after making this discovery, Target arranged for Homes England to re-issue the Deed. It also obtained an email copy, which it sent to Mr M’s solicitor.

17. Target received the new Deed from Homes England on 31 January. It sent this to Mr M’s solicitor, who received it on 2 February.

18. There is no doubt that there was a delay, caused mainly by the incorrect routing of the original Deed in December 2022. Without seeing the package itself, and determining what address was written on it, even on the balance of probabilities, whether Homes England was to blame for this error.

19. Target were Homes England’s scheme administrators for a number of years. Homes England would therefore have been highly likely to have been in regular communication with Target. As much of this contact was via post, we consider it reasonable to say that Homes England knew the address to use when sending information to Target, which it would have done often.

20. In addition, we know that Royal Mail was in the midst of ongoing industrial action at the time the wrong delivery issue occurred. Because of this, we are aware that its staffing levels fell, and increased strain was placed on the organisation.

21. Having considered this carefully, we do not consider that we can say, even on balance, that Homes England was responsible for the delay. We recognise that this will be a frustrating outcome. We have to make robust decisions that are fair to all parties, and in this case, regrettably, there is not enough evidence available to allow us to do that.

1. We have carefully considered Mr M’s complaint about Homes England. We were sorry to hear about how frustrating he found contacting Homes England to be and of the additional costs he says he incurred because of its delays.

2. Unfortunately, we do not think we can say, even on balance, whether Homes England was responsible for the delays. For this reason, we have decided not to investigate further.