62 1GM Saturday August 1 2020 | the timesMoney
Have your say on ways to
combat pension fraudsters
P
lans to tackle pension scammers
who prey on older people are
being considered in parliament.
The work and pensions committee
has begun an inquiry into how to pre-
vent these frauds, including what the
most common tricks are and what
public bodies can do to tackle the
scammers. It is also looking into how
savings are being accessed, five years on
from the pension freedoms that
allowed people to withdraw from their
pots without having to buy an annuity
— an insurance policy that pays a set
income. MPs will also consider how
people are saving for later life, and are
seeking evidence until September 9.
The pension rule change in 2015
meant that people with defined contri-
bution pensions (which do not guaran-
tee an income but depend on theamount you pay in and the perform-
ance of underlying investments) could
withdraw their pot from the age of 55.
The freedoms led to concerns that
giving savers greater control of their
cash would put them at risk of invest-
ment scams.
In 2018 victims of pension scams lost
£82,000 on average, a sum that would
take 22 years to build up, according to
the Financial Conduct Authority and
the Pensions Regulator.
Phil Brown from the People’s Pen-
sion, a workplace scheme, said: “The
impact of pension fraud is unusually
harmful, with life-changing sums of
money lost. Pension fraud did not begin
with the freedoms, but they have
created opportunities for scammers
that we need to contain.”
Kate PalmerThe new version of
Help to Buy, which will run
from April 2021 until March
2023, is set to have regional
price caps for qualifying homes in a bid
to stop developers from overinflating
prices. In the northwest of England, for
example, buyers would be restricted to
houses valued at a maximum of
£224,400, while the cap in the south-
west was set to be £349,000.
The Home Builders Federation
(HBF), a trade association, estimates
that 40 per cent of the people buyingT
he government has thrown a
lifeline to thousands of
families in danger of having
their house purchases fall
through because of construc-
tion delays during the pandemic.
An extension to the Help to Buy loan
scheme was announced yesterday to
ensure that people who have paid de-posits will be able to complete their pur-
chase. The previous construction dead-
line was the end of December but this
has now been extended to February 28.
This will come as a welcome relief to
first-time buyers and homemovers
worried about missing out on a dream
house. Some buyers have pulled out of
purchases because they feared thatDeadline day relief for couples
they would lose their deposits if build-
ers failed to finish before the deadline
next year.
Developers usually allow for a
three-month window after a house is
completed to go through the legal sale
process, so building would have needed
to be finished by the end of the year to
have been part of the scheme before
yesterday’s change.
Help to Buy, which lends up to 20 per
cent (40 per cent in London) of the cost
of a new-build home interest-free for
five years, was due to end in April 2021
and be replaced by a stricter schemeopen only to first-time buyers. Scotland
has extended its Help to Buy scheme by
a year to March 2022.
The two-month shutdown of the
housing market during lockdown has
led to widespread construction delays,
and housebuyers and builders have
called for an extension.
Users of the scheme, which is avail-
able for homes worth up to £600,000 in
England and £300,000 in Wales, have
to raise at least a 5 per cent deposit and
get a mortgage for the rest.
Robert Usher, 35, and Caoimhe
McGeehan, 30, reserved a new four-
bedroom detached house in Sunder-
land last November that was due to be
completed by December this year.
They have been approved for a mort-
gage, but the house is now not expected
to be finished until February.
Robert works for a science research
company that is helping the fightagainst coronavirus and Caoimhe is a
trainee clinical psychologist. They have
saved a 5 per cent deposit for their first
home and secured a 20 per cent gov-
ernment loan.
Without the Help to Buy scheme,
they said it would have taken about
seven years for them to save
enough to buy the kind of
house they have reserved,
especially because much
of their income goes on
rent.
“We would have been
absolutely gutted if the ap-
proval fell through,” Robert said.
The couple are planning to bring up
a family in their new home.
“After the last few months of stress,
not knowing if we will have a home or
if we will lose savings on what we have
already paid in legal costs and reserva-
tion fees, it will feel great to know we get
to move into the home we spent the
best part of a year planning for.
“Potentially losing the house has
made us think how much it already
means to us — even though we don’t
own it. We are happy about the exten-
sion; it will certainly be a positive end-
ing to what has been a year to forget.”After months of construction delays caused
by the virus, the government is extending its
equity loan scheme, reports Katherine Denham
‘We are just so pleased
that the government is
finally doing something’
Rothwell
Charlotte and Shay
would not qualify under
the new scheme