FAQs

Many people find their rental costs take up so much of their monthly income, it’s nearly impossible to save for a mortgage deposit. This is commonly referred to as the “Rent Trap.”

HomeNow purchases homes for people without a mortgage deposit. You rent it for a set period, with fixed monthly payments and security of tenure. At the end, you are obliged to buy your home, using a rent refund equivalent to 5% of your home’s value to help with your deposit.

People who can afford monthly mortgage payments but are stuck renting because they are having difficulty saving for a mortgage deposit.

No. The Any Home Plan is not currently available. We are not accepting new applications at this time.

We have temporarily paused the Any Home Plan. We are unable to share further detail at this stage, but we will update this page when the position changes.

We do not have a confirmed date to share at this time. We recommend checking back on this page for updates.

If you are on the waiting list, your place has been noted. Our team will be in touch when we have an update. You do not need to do anything right now. Please contact us if you have any questions in the meantime.

We are not currently adding new names to the waiting list. Please check back here for any changes to this.

Our New Build Plan is currently open to new applicants. You can also view our available properties to see what else may suit you.

Yes. HomeNow offers two options: a five year “Any Home Plan” designed for most open market homes, and a two year “New Build Plan” designed specifically for brand new properties. We’ll help you identify which plan best suits your situation during the assessment process.

Any Home Plan: You choose an eligible open market home. After 5 years, you receive a rental refund equivalent to 5% of your home’s value which you can use as a deposit contribution when you buy your home. This suits renters needing more time to prepare or wanting to live in a specific area.

New Build Plan: You choose from a selection of new build properties. After 2 years, you receive a rental refund equivalent to 5% of your home’s value which you can use as deposit contribution when you buy your home. This suits renters looking for a quicker route to home ownership.

As part of our assessment, we’ll review your income, expenditure, and property preferences to recommend the best plan for you.

1. You find an eligible property.
2. We conduct checks on you and the property.
3. HomeNow negotiates with the seller and purchases the property.
4. You rent the property for the agreed 5 year term at a fixed rent as part of a Home Purchase Plan (HPP).
5. At the end of the term, you are obliged to buy your home.
6. You will receive a rental refund equivalent to 5% of your home’s value to help with your mortgage deposit.

1. HomeNow purchases a selection of new build home direct from developers.
2. You choose which home you like best.
3. We conduct checks to assess your ability to afford the rental payments and a mortgage at the end of the plan.
4. You rent the property for 2 years at a fixed rent as part of a Home Purchase Plan (HPP).
5. At the end of the term you are obliged to buy your home.
6. You will receive a rental refund equivalent to 5% of your home’s value to help with your mortgage deposit.

No, you don’t need a traditional deposit for either plan. Instead, you pay a ‘Reservation Fee’ equivalent to one month’s rent to secure your property.

Both the Any Home and New Build plans include a 5% rent refund if you buy the home, but this differs depending on the plan.

With the Any Home Plan, provided your home is worth at least 5% more than we paid for it, you will be entitled to a rental refund equivalent to 5% of the value at the end of the term.

With the New Build Plan, provided your home is valued at least as much as when we bought it (plus costs – typically around £2,000),  you will be entitled to a rental refund equivalent to 5% of the value at the end of the term.

Any Home Plan: Yes. Home prices need to rise by 5% for you to gain the expected benefit.
New Build Plan: Yes, but only by the costs we incurred when buying the home (typically around £2,000).

There are no fixed thresholds, but we’ll carry out an affordability check based on your household income, expenditure, and likely mortgage eligibility.

Yes. Adverse credit doesn’t automatically disqualify you, as long as we believe you can afford the rent and may qualify for a mortgage later. Please note that your credit health towards the end of the plan will be used for mortgage eligibility so it’s important to maintain this.

You treat the property as your own home, handling day-to-day maintenance and decoration. HomeNow covers essential legal landlord obligations, such as buildings insurance, gas and electrical safety checks.

Getting a mortgage at the end of the plan is your responsibility but in this situation we’ll work with you to find an appropriate mortgage product. If this isn’t possible options may include extending your plan until you’re mortgage ready, or selling the property. If we sell you’ll still receive your rent refund.

If prices don’t increase enough, your rent refund still applies, but it may be smaller than the target 5%. In some cases, we may extend your plan to give more time for growth. The Any Home Plan requires house price growth, but the New Build Plan only requires prices to increase by the amount we spent buying the home (around £2,000) to deliver the 5% rental refund.

Both plans are designed for fixed terms. However, in special circumstances – such as redundancy, relocation, or illness – early exit may be possible. This will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

If you purchase your home at the end of the plan, you will receive a rental refund equivalent to 5% of  your home’s value provided it has increased in value sufficiently. The refund may be reduced if there are unpaid maintenance costs or if you leave early. There are detailed illustrations of both plans on the relevant pages on this website.

If property prices fall below the day one value, HomeNow bears the loss and may waive your purchase obligation. You won’t be required to buy if the home’s value doesn’t meet the agreed minimum.

Yes. At the end of your plan you purchase 100% of the property in a single step.

No. Our affordability and credit checks are designed to mirror mainstream lender criteria, but passing them does not guarantee that a third party lender will approve your mortgage.

If you’re not mortgage ready after 2 or 5 years depending on which plan you are on, we may be able to extend your Home Purchase Plan on a year-by-year basis.

Buying before the end of your plan is possible at HomeNow’s discretion, but may attract an Early Repayment Charge.

1. You will be obliged to purchase the property at the end of the lease unless we waive this obligation. We may agree to do so in certain circumstances (e.g. where you demonstrate you cannot afford to purchase the property) but any waiver is at our sole discretion.

2. There is no guarantee you will be eligible for a 95% mortgage to buy your chosen property from HomeNow after your Home Purchase Plan (“HPP”) term has expired. In these circumstances you are unlikely to move into home ownership unless we extend or revise the terms of your HPP.

3. The value of your home may not increase as we expect, or may even decrease over the term of your HPP. If this means you don’t have enough money to fund a deposit to purchase the property we have the discretion to:

• extend the term of the HPP until the home purchase becomes affordable for you.  In certain circumstances you may end up paying more than if had you rented and saved over the same period.
•  Sell the property to a third party.

In circumstances where you have a sufficient rental refund, are eligible for a 95% mortgage we will enforce your obligation to buy your home.

5. If you don’t keep up rental payments, your home may be repossessed.

6. The price at which you buy your home will be the market value at the end of end of your Home Purchase Plan. This is likely to be higher valuation than the value at the beginning of your plan.

Yes. HomeNow operates as an FCA regulated Home Purchase Plan provider (Firm Reference Number: 822295). This means your plan is subject to the protections of a regulated financial product.

If something goes wrong while being serviced by HomeNow, this is our complaints procedure.

What is a complaint?

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) defines a complaint as:

“Any expression of dissatisfaction, whether oral or written, and whether justified or not, from or on behalf of an eligible complainant about the firm’s provision of, or failure to provide, a financial service or redress determination.”

HomeNow takes complaints and negative feedback seriously. We’re committed to ensuring that we handle all complaints fairly, consistently and quickly.

We regularly review the complaints we get to learn from them and improve our level of service for the future.

How to get in touch if you have a complaint

If you have a complaint about your HomeNow journey you can contact us by:

• emailing: support@homenowuk.com
• writing to: Eighth Floor, 100 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4AG

What happens if you make a complaint?

All HomeNow staff are trained to identify complaints.

Once we get a complaint, we report it to our Compliance Team and Operational Managers for review.

If we can resolve your complaint within 3 business days

If we can resolve your complaint within 3 business days, we’ll contact you to explain the outcome of our investigation. We’ll also tell you how we think we can resolve it.

If you accept the resolution, we will confirm this to you in writing.

If we cannot resolve your complaint within 3 business days

If we cannot resolve your complaint within 3 days, we’ll write to you to tell you:

• we’ve received your complaint
• we understand your complaint
• who will be handling it

We’ll also give you a chance to provide any more information or documents.

Investigating your complaint

After this, we’ll investigate your complaint in full.

We aim to give you our final response with a full explanation of the findings within 8 weeks.

If we cannot give you a final response within this time, we’ll write to you to:

• explain our position
• set out next steps
• tell you about your right to refer to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS)

Closing your complaint

We will consider your complaint closed if:

• we’ve sent you a final response
• you’ve told us in writing that you accept one of our earlier responses
• you refer your complaint to FOS and they tell us in writing that the complaint has been closed

The Financial Ombudsman Service

If you’re dissatisfied with our response, you can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service for a free independent review. You must do so within 6 months of the date of our final response letter.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) will only consider your complaint once you’ve tried to resolve it with us.

Tell us about your concerns first and we’ll do all we can to help.

Categories of complaints the FOS can consider

The FOS is also only able to consider certain types of complaints.

The FOS do not investigate complaints about Buy to Let mortgages as it’s outside of their jurisdiction.

This is because Buy to Let mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The FOS might not be able to consider your complaint if:

• what you’re complaining about happened over 6 years ago
• you’re complaining more than 3 years after you realised, or should’ve realised there was a problem

The FOS will decide if your complaint was made outside of these time limits. If they decide it is, they will not have our permission to consider your complaint.

There are few circumstances where they can. For example, if they think the delay was a result of exceptional circumstances.

Find out what services the Financial Ombudsman Service offer on their website: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

Or contact them by:

• writing to: The Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London. E14 9SR
• calling: 0800 023 4567 or 0300 123 9123
• emailing: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) directive

The ADR directive is European law. So there are other ways to resolve contractual disputes between consumers and businesses.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is the ADR provider for Financial Services in the UK.

They provide a complaint handling service under the ADR directive as well as their role as an ombudsman service.

HomeNow has decided to continue dealing with customers’ complaints when we get them, rather than pass responsibility to the FOS under the ADR directive.

This does not affect customers’ statutory rights to refer complaints to the FOS like we set out above.

HomeNow is a member of the Property Redress Scheme, an independent organisation dedicated to resolving disputes between consumers and property agents in the UK.  You can contact them at https://www.portal.propertyredress.co.uk/Complain.

Online Dispute Resolution Platform (ODR)

Complaints about financial services firms may also be sent to the Online Dispute Resolution website: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

Any complaints the ODR are sent are forwarded to the FOS and then to HomeNow.

Complaints through the ODR are treated in the same way as those through other methods.