My partner and I are first time buyers, young couple and was interested in the current new build that had just come available. We had an awful experience with our previous property and needed a better quality house. The property before that was on the same plot allowed us to use the help to buy scheme. We assumed the same scheme was possible with this current house. Before reserving we showed Lovelle’s our mortgage in principle and gifted deposit amount which didn’t add up to the total asking price because we were using Help to Buy. Due to Lovelle’s not checking our mortgage in principle and not correcting us (which they had noticed the mortgage was considerably less as the owner told me over the phone ) we paid £1000 to reserve the property. Months down the line, the developer found out we were using Help to Buy and told us he didn’t offer that scheme and we ended up losing the house and deposit. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and was becoming very stressed. The owner rang me and said one of her team assumed we had a gifted deposit for the rest of the amount of the property (which was £50,000!) When I complained and asked for support in receiving our £1000 deposit back from the developer we were shut down. We wouldn’t of reserved the house if we knew he didn’t use Help to Buy but we were not informed and it was not picked up- even though they deal with this day in and day out. I was extremely stressed, upset and disappointed in the response to our situation.