Home front: could wealthy foreigners exploit the Help to Buy scheme? While it is important to emphasise that the precise wording of the Help to Buy scheme has yet to emerge from the Treasury, it is difficult for European Union member states to restrict benefits to people from just one country to the exclusion of those from elsewhere in the EU. But can government stimulus move a multi-trillion pound market? Lucian Cook of Savills is emphatic: "We believe that the Help to Buy initiatives will have a much bigger impact on the market and transaction levels than previous government schemes such as FirstBuy and NewBuy." Savills research estimates that Help to Buy could fund 75,000 new homes sales over the next three years, or about a third more sales a year than at present. Here and now, those keen to get onto the property ladder with or without the aid of politicians" initiatives would do well to remember the role of building societies. They continue to deliver the home loans they were set up to provide. While not one of the building societies that floated on the stock market to become a bank a decade or more ago remains an independent going concern - and most of the banks that survived remain reluctant to lend - building societies are continuing to provide mortgages. Gross lending by building societies was £2.5bn in February. That's an increase of 29pc on the same month last year. Paul Broadhead, head of mortgage policy at the Building Societies Association, said: "We welcome the renewed focus on challenges faced by people looking to buy for the first time or move home, but it is a shame that the Help to Buy guarantee is needed." If Help to Buy ends up helping foreign homebuyers push house prices even further into the stratosphere, he won't be the only one crying "shame." But the law of unintended consequences is particularly prone to afflict Budget gimmicks. It will be interesting to see if Treasury wonks rewriting the Finance Bill now can manage to dig the Chancellor out of this hole.