Lurking I live on an estate built in 2006 and completed 2 years later. None of the roads are adopted by the council. We pay a fee to a management company instead. Its technically not public land.
My house was built to fulfil the social housing requirements of the development. We bought it through shared ownership.
For us, it was useful and we have since bought out the property. We could not have got on the property ladder easily in the area otherwise.
In the end DH's salary went up significantly as he changed jobs. Otherwise we would not have been able to buy the other half. Bizarrely we got caught in a situation where our mortgage and coupled with social rent rises was coming in HIGHER than if we were full ownership.
But despite this we really struggled to get a mortgage because we couldn't get enough equity together as we got caught out by the rules changing meaning that you needed at least 15% equity for most mortgage lenders. We weren't eligible for a first time buyers mortgage which only required 10% equity because although this is still our first house, we weren't classed as first time buyers. The most frustrating thing about this, was the value of the house had gone DOWN not up - and this had meant the equity we had put in, was gone. We had over paid our mortgage and had originally put down 10% equity but this had gone. Our experience was that shared ownership was a real curse in a market where prices go down. Its a trap, because you can't legally rent out your property (as this would be sub-letting), and you might not be able to afford to sell it either.
This is leading to some issues regarding subletting. I know that our previous neighbours who was also on shared ownership wanted to rent out their house after their relationship collapsed not realising they were unable to do this. They eventually sold up, and the new neighbour moved out. She, at one point, did sublet as she moved in with her boyfriend and was unable to sell.
We eventually did find someone who would lend us the money to buy out the other half of our house. They were shocked at our figures and circumstances. Even then they couldn't offer us all their mortgage products because as it was a shared ownership buy out, we were not eligible for some of them. On top of this, this meant our legal fees were higher as it was a more complex process (and thank god we went with a more expensive solicitor with a good reputation to sort out that mess).
Whilst we were still under the housing association (which is separate from the estate management company) they were a nightmare to deal with. Our rent kept going up. We know other people on the estate who have struggled as it was going up so much. One of the problems though, is we don't know who is part of the social housing scheme and who was purely privately owned which made finding out if others were having similar problems, impossible to know.
When we did buy out the house we spent some time trying to make sure the housing association were doing things on their side, with much difficulty. We even asked them explicitly to check they had removed us from their rental list and were told we were. And lo and behold we got a rental demand for our own house after we had purchased the second half.
Shared ownership worked for us. But like I say its caused real issues for others we know - and from what I hear our scheme is one of the better ones from the time (it was one of the early one, so I don't know how it has changed). I have heard some real horror stories.
We still have a management company to deal with. They didn't charge us for two years then sent everyone on the estate nasty letters demanding immediate payment. They randomly then gave us rebates. They are anonymous and we don't really know anything about them. This fee includes fees for road maintenance and lighting - so this is on top of our normal council tax obligations of course. I don't mind paying it hugely as the estate is nice and well maintained but I'm not sure I would be happy if the estate had problems. And I'm not sure I would be happy if I was a tenant of the low rise flats here, who pay substantially more.
My point is that these schemes are big business - even shared ownership. Its very much privatising things others take for granted. We can not switch to gas / electric suppliers outside the big six because of the nature of our estate. (I don't understand why this is - DH went through the process of trying to do it, but we were unable to for some reason).
I think affordable homes and shared ownership really do have a place, but my experience - as limited as it is compared to some - is that its full of pitfalls most people don't have any clue at all about and are completely unaware of. These scheme are fraught with small print and legal problems you don't know when you walk into them even with good legal advice. I can't help but worry about how some are exploiting it. The industry is crying out for better regulation.
As I say it has worked for us (despite our problems), and I love where we live and houses sell well, but its also at the back of my mind that we would be wise to move in the next few years as I think issues with the leasehold / management company are going to crop up in a few years.
I have been talking to our local councillor about the issues as he is a social housing advocate and wants more locally and wanted to know the ins and outs. He has been frustrated by developers building here who have shirked their social housing quota by doing a deal so they don't have to build it on the expense estates and instead can build it on cheaper sites elsewhere in the borough. Obviously this rather is adding to the economic divide between rich and poor which is completely at odds with its purpose. But people round here come out in a rash at the idea of 'social housing' - my councillor is an pains to call it 'affordable housing' instead so they don't through their toys out of their BMWs.
Anyway, that was a bit of an epic, but I think also quite relevant to current politics too.