Help To Buy ISA - Nightmare!

Financial Chat
1

Morning all,

My wife and I have a Help to Buy ISA with Barclays. We have now found somewhere to live, had our offer accepted and are now ready to exchange. Our exchange date was meant to be Friday just gone and our completion date is this Friday.

The Government Help to Buy ISA advise site says:

How long after I close my account do I have before I need to claim my bonus?
You need to claim your bonus within 12 months of closing your account and before the completion of your home purchase. You should not close your Help to Buy: ISA unless you are confident that you are about to buy a home.
https://www.helptobuy.gov.uk/help-to-buy-isa/faq/

As a result, we did not look to close the account until we had confirmation we were ready to exchange which only came the week before our scheduled exchange date.

We also gave 4 weeks notice on our rental as, like above, we were at the point of exchange and wanted to minimise the time we were paying for two properties.

The issue we are having, is we cannot claim our HTP Gov bonus without a closing statement. Barclays say they cannot print it in branch as they do not have a printer, a branch stamp and it wouldn’t have out address on so would not be accepted. The only method they say we can get the closing statement is via post.

The account was closed on Friday 1st March, and we were told this would take 5 working days to arrive. By Friday 8th we still had not received it. We called Barclays and they have now said they will send another but I do not hold out much hope.

Has anyone else found this to be the case and how did you get around it? Is there anything we can do/say to make Barclays jump into life and action something more instant for us than snail mail?

I’m baffled that this is the ONLY way you can get your closing statement. My worry is that if it takes much longer, we will need to vacate our rental (which already has another tenant lined up) and end up homeless with all of our belongings.

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Update: 12/03/2019

So last night I reached the end of my tether and decided it was time to raise a complaint with Barclays. I called them and asked them once more for the statrement, to which I was told yet again they could only post a new one.

I asked to speak to the complaints team and was swiftly put through. I spent 10mins explaining the whole series of events up until this point to whcih the complaints handler swiftly replies
“What is your email address? I can send this to you electronically”.
A few minutes later the starement arrived and was sent onto the solicitor.

We were also given compensation for the stress and time this has taken to resolve.

Personally, I feel the complaints handler was amazing. She was calm and friendly and really understood our issues and worked as hard as she could to resolve it as quick as she could. Sadly, we had to get to this point for a solution, which is why I am certain I will never bank with Barclays again.

Long live Monzo! :mondo:

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2

Can’t you go to another Barclays branch and have them print and stamp it there?

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3

We have asked on the phone and in our current branch but both have said this is not possible as the branches don’t have the facility to print the statements. I feel these are just excuses as they seem to change the reason each time we talk to them, but I can’t for the life of me work out why they are so against it

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4

Can you print yourself if they send you a pdf?
Or submit a pdf?
Might not be possible as I’m not sure how you have to claim but was just the first idea that came in my head

5

In and ideal world. We have suggested this but for security reasons they say the cannot do this. I asked if we sign into our online bacnking can we printer one from there, but as we only have an ISA with them and not a current account, we cannot get online banking

6

As mentioned above, just go to another branch that has a printer.

Also, give the Government HtB people a call and explain the situation you’re in. I know it’s a different department but it is related to something similar that I had. When I recently paid off my HtB loan their paperwork said they wouldn’t accept digital copies of my statements, but after a quick phone call explaining how I need to contact Monzo and have them posted etc they said they would be happy to accept digital copies. So I just exported them from Monzo and emailed them over - job done :boom:

So you never know. Just ask :slight_smile:

7

I’ll give them a call later this morning and see if they can expodite this. I have heard of other people online having the same issue so hopefully this won’t be a unique case for them

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8

I’d like to think that in the future stuff like this can be done electronically (like proof of no claims on insurance I haven’t had to send proof in a long time)

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Update: 12/03/2019

So last night I reached the end of my tether and decided it was time to raise a complaint with Barclays. I called them and asked them once more for the statrement, to which I was told yet again they could only post a new one.

I asked to speak to the complaints team and was swiftly put through. I spent 10mins explaining the whole series of events up until this point to whcih the complaints handler swiftly replies
“What is your email address? I can send this to you electronically”.
A few minutes later the starement arrived and was sent onto the solicitor.

We were also given compensation for the stress and time this has taken to resolve.

Personally, I feel the complaints handler was amazing. She was calm and friendly and really understood our issues and worked as hard as she could to resolve it as quick as she could. Sadly, we had to get to this point for a solution, which is why I am certain I will never bank with Barclays again.

Long live Monzo! :mondo:

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10

Glad it’s sorted for you. Can’t believe it was that simple.
I have a feeling this is one of those things where the branch just uses the answer they have since 1901 and actually doesn’t clarify or look for anything new.
I used to order change via Rbs they have an online ordering page that sends the branch an email.
The effort it took to get the branch to realise this was a thing was astounding.
“You can’t order change that way, you have to fill in a card and bring it into the branch” :weary:

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