Housing Minister, Lucy Frazer has granted an extension to the practical completion deadline for Help to Buy transactions in England by six weeks.

The minister confirmed the extension in a letter to the Home Builders Federation’s (HBF) Executive Chairman, Stewart Baseley on Thursday evening (26 January 2023).

The update follows HBF’s contact with Homes England and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), alerting them to a small number of plots that would struggle to meet the 31 January ‘First Longstop’.

While expressing disappointment that the additional forbearance is required in these small number of cases, the minister has extended the deadline for practical completion to 17 March. Frazer makes clear there will be no consideration of any additional forbearance as this could risk completions achieving legal completion by 31 March.

Developers who wish to make use of the additional forbearance will need to ‘provide Homes England with details of the plots they require forbearance for, the reasons for the delay as well as the date they expect the plot to complete by’. Homebuilders must notify Homes England using the Practical Completion Notification form by 11.59pm on Friday 3 February 2023.

More information is available on the GOV.UK Help to Buy pages.