Government takes aim at Help to Buy cheats "If you already own another property that has a mortgage against it, you have to declare the fact already as it is another financial liability," said Ray Boulger of John Charcol, the mortgage broker. And if you own another property outright, without a mortgage, it would make more sense to mortgage against that property if you want to buy another one rather than using Help to Buy. He added that extending the scheme beyond newbuild homes was no longer needed, given the success of the first stage and of other government programmes in supporting the housing market. Do we really need this scheme? There's a real risk of overegging the recovery in the housing market," he said. By sticking with just the newbuild element, you are supporting the economy in a more targeted fashion because of all the knock-on benefits of house building to other sectors. The clever thing for the Chancellor to do would be to scrap the second phase of the scheme. Unfortunately, he is already too heavily committed to it. Other commentators have attacked the scheme because they say it risks stoking another house price bubble. The recovery in the market was illustrated by last week's rise in the number of mortgages taken out by first-time buyers. According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, 25,100 first-time buyer loans were approved in May, a rise of 29pc on the figure for April and 42pc higher than in May last year. Further evidence of the market's strong recovery was also offered today by Rightmove. A monthly study by the UK's largest property listings website found that the average asking price for homes had hit £253,658. See forecasts in our weekly email