Help to Buy Scheme Could Net Government £4.5BILLION

The Help to Buy scheme could net the government £4.5billion because of a house price boom - even though the boom has partly been blamed on the scheme itself. The Treasury is on track to receive a vast windfall because of a clause allowing it to share the cash from homes which are sold on at a profit. Help to Buy hands buyers 20 per cent of a home's value - and when the house is sold with the loan still active, the government takes 20 per cent of any increase over the years. Because of the explosion in British house prices, the government will make a 59 per cent return on its loans over the scheme's lifetime, research by the Financial Times has claimed. That means by 2020, when the scheme is due to end, the Treasury will have handed out enough loans to net itself £4.5billion. Read more on the Daily Mail website.