Does anyone know about Shared Ownership? Please help!!!!

[totalmisfit]

Wasn't sure whether to post this here or in Property. It's quite long-winded so please bear with me.

DP and I have a mortgage for 40% of our flat. The rest is owned by our housing association, who we also pay a substantial amount of rent and service charge to. We bought our place under the Key Worker Scheme as DP is a teacher.

He has been offered a job about 100 miles away and as a result has had to resign from his current job in order to give the required 3 months notice. We have burnt our bridges, so to speak and have to move by September when his new job starts. We are putting our flat on the market this week. As the housing association owns 60% they get exclusive rights to sell our house for the first 6-8 weeks. If after this time they have not found a buyer it is then up to us to go through an estate agent.

So far so bad... except we've been testing the waters with estate agents in the area and they have told us in no uncertain terms that they won't touch shared ownership with a bargepole and didn't know of any who would. When i mentioned this fact to the resales agent at our housing association 'well there are estate agents who deal with it.' but she couldn't give me any names. I've googled it too, with no luck. She also admitted that they had had absolutely no interest from anyone looking to buy in our area. I asked if i could get in touch with someone who had had success selling through them recently and she said she couldn't give out details.

I should also add that in the 18 months we've been here we have found the housing association to be absolutely useless at every turn, for example the front door was broken for 2 months and there's a wall outside which was vandalised about 6 months ago which is just rubble. Despite numerous calls they've done nothing. So we don't exactly have a lot of hope in them getting off their backsides and trying to sell our flat for us, esp with such a small timescale. I fear it will just be an easy £300 for them, and will waste 8 weeks we desperately need in order to sell quickly.

So if we haven't sold by early September, we'll have no choice but to move but carry on paying rent, mortgage and service charge here as well as a hefty amount of rent where we're moving to. This would effectively bankrupt us. Because we only 'own' 40% we cannot rent to someone else, and apparently, neither can the housing association rent out in our absence, and in the absence of a buyer. It seems obscene that our flat would be standing empty when so many people struggle to put a roof over their heads.

It seems we're experiencing the worst of both worlds, being both leaseholders and tenants. Maybe this is just the way the world is and i just need to accept it, but if anyone knows of anything we can do to remedy the situation i would be eternally grateful. Thanks for reading.

Don't really know what to suggest. DP and I have shared ownership, but of a private house. The housing association own 40% of our house, but we have a mortgage for the rest and don't pay them any rent or anything, but we are responsible for the upkeep of the house.

Our friend who was in a very similar position to you when she sold her house did manage to get a buyer within 8 weeks through the housing association. I don't know where you live but round my area the housing associations tend to have a waiting list of buyers so there isn't normally any problems.

I know it's difficult, but have faith in the housing association for finding a buyer. I think the main problem with estate agents and shared ownership is that they don't want to deal with it because they don't understand it.

Where did you find it, can you not go back to them

thanks tutu100, reassuring to hear your friend managed to sell her place throught her housing association.

the thing that scares me the most was that the resales agent at the housing association today told me that she didn't have a list of potential buyers! no-one!

but in our contract it says they have first preference so that they can sell to someone on their list. So if they dont' actually ahve a list of potential buyers would that clause still stand, i wonder?

lilyloo - not sure what you mean. sorry!

i should add we're in East london by the way. you would think, what with the olympics and all, people would still be keen to buy, but the housing association are just going on and on about the credit crunch everytime i talk to them . i wonder if it's actually affecting them as much as they say, or if it's more a front for doing bugger all to help us

Are you able to do an exchange with some one from the area you need to move to? Is that an option?

hiya jules, thanks -lots to take in there, just reading through your posts. will post in a second...

right, i shall try to provide a few answers...

we are no longer tied in to selling to key workers, but i think it still has to be to a first time buyer on a low income

i'm a bit ahead of myself in some ways as we will be putting getting the valuation done and putting it on the market in the next week (have been waiting for some of dp's funds to come through).

Not sure if we can sell at less than the market price - i think so but will have to check my contract (which appears to have been written in middle english)

8 weeks will start as soon as the valuation is done (hopefully asap)

no others for sale in our block at the moment.

can't afford to buy the other 60% (part of the reason we're moving to a much cheaper area - or trying to)

Our ha take £300 up front to get the ball rolling and as far as i know, they only take a fee if we do sell (0.75%)

ours is newbuild (or was in 2006 when we bought it) and there are quite a few other blocks, largely owned by the same ha, in our area, including a brand new development just down the road, which wont' be for sale for a few months (we hope!). I wonder how the heck they're planning to shift these new flats if apparently they don't have any buyers in our area????

I think we decide the sale price, although i'm not 100% sure. another thing i need to check. I think it can be sold at the current market value, providing someone is willing to buy it.

I think for the first 8 weeks any potential buyer would have to meet the ha criteria, but after that it's up to us. not sure what their criteria is, exactly any more, as it's no longer restricted to key workers.

will try and find out which mortgage providers still offer 40% mortgages. we got ours through nationwide originally. luckily when we eventually move, we will rent for a few years for the sake of checking out the new area, seeing the best places to buy etc.

what area of property do you work in?

Bumping for anyone who can help me work out if there's anything we can do.

Hi total misfit, we are in a similar situation to you, looking at selling a share of a shared ownership apartment so I have done some research on this and understand your frustration! First thing I would say is try not to panic! Despite what you HA say, it seems surprising that there is a shortage of buyers in your area especially if in London and my experience of SA is that demand still outstrips supply. The impact of the Credit Crunch should actually be beneficial - ie first time buyers finding it harder to get the mortgages they need so having to look at options which require smaller borrowing amounts. I would suggest ringing your HA pretending to be a potential buyer, ask them what they have on the books and available and whether there is a waiting list. You could also put up an add up in your block as other residents may know of people interested in benefiting who could approach the HA directly. Gumtree or similar could be another option for this. I would also suggest contacting other HAs in the area and asking about their waiting lists - could then use this info to prompt your HA. Your local authority should also have a waiting list for SA including key workers in the area. This website www.shared-ownership.org.uk/lists local agents dealing with SO. However, although they may seem rubbish, remember that as long as you get the market value for your property you are better off selling with the HA as there fees will be significantly less than an agent.

Finally, if the worse comes to the worse, rent it out - this is actually what we are doing. You are breaking the terms of a lease not committing a crime. Short term lets are surprisingly easy to come by via gum tree etc or your husbands school could be a good way of finding someone. If your HA are as rubbish as you think they are they will never know and the worse penalty they can impose is evicting you - ie forcing you to sell which you are trying to do anyway ! Hope that helps.

thanks trio, some very good suggestions! sorry to hear you're in a similar boat.

thanks for the link, i shall give it a look in a minute. Whereabouts are you based by the way? Are you in London too?

Hi I work for a large Housing Association in London in Shared Ownership , you should be able to apply for permission to sub let in the mean time as the one I work for allows it , if it is to do with work relocation. Quite a few of our lessee's do that on Shared Ownership properties and consent is given

Hi

I sold my shared ownership property last year.

I had it valued in April and my HA placed it on Housing Options on my behalf. I then conducted viewings for people who had already been approved for shared ownership thru housing options.

I accepted an offer at the market value early June and the sale finally completed early December.

Are you in the South East? Google Housing Options and check it out. Your HA should have a whole "resale" dept who can assist you with this.

The local agents will certainly market your property for you if you do not find someone thru the HA. When I bought my property it was thru a local agent.

Good luck! It is stressful and slow and you should choose your buyer carefully as all parties will need to keep chasing their solicitors etc to keep the sale moving.

My buyer was really unreliable and caused delay after delay. It took her 12 weeks to get a mortgage offer

great advice here. I live in a shared ownership property in London too. Once you have bought 100% of the property can you sell on the open market as if it were not shared ownership or do you still have to go through HA?

once you own 100% of the property then it's yours to do with as you wish (within the terms of your contract/leasehold agreement) as if you had bought it outright in the first place iyswim.

We also sold a SO house and my sister bought one two months back- if there are questionsabhout who provides mortgages now, CAT me and I shalla sk her.

Our mortgage was nationwide but it was some time back, however our house was bizarre as wasnt stepped (ie you couldnt buy the, in our case, other 50%) and only Nationwide would deal with them.

HA didnt sell so we did, all the estate agents we asked quoted happily, and we got a good, market value price, although it had to be someone who met their criteria

TBH the only contribution the HA ever made was to slow things up! surprised you were asking them about maintenance though- our contract was that we did it all

yes my mortgage was also with Nationwide, as arranged by the agent's mortgage consultant. they are one of the few lenders who will on SO property.

lilyloo's dp is an excellent mortgage advisor and has helped me enormously in the last 10 months. i would thoroughly recommend contacting lily for her dp's details.

all internal maintenance was down to me as owner/tenant. external/shared areas were handled by the HA.

i was also given approval to sub-let after a job relocation so this is definately worth asking about especially if you have a need to move quickly.

it does complicate matters having tenants in the property tho.

it is slow slow slow when buying/selling these properties due to their being 3 parties involved.

we also sublet, to the buyers, whilst everything went through (there was a delayu and we needed to move on the planned date)

however wouldn't necessarily recommend that- they felt they owned the house and ripped out the kitchn, we'd have had serious issues if they hadn't completed (did have proper lease but can you imagine the timescales...)

curlysmum - v interesting - i wonder if your housing association is the same one we're with? i asked the resales agent at ours whether we could sublet if we were unable to sell(explaining that we have to relocate) and got a very firm 'no'. they gave the reasons 1) we don't have a buy to let mortgage and 2) we only have a mortgage for 40%. she didn't seem to care that we would be relocating. I got the impression from the way she spoke that she thought it was 'not their problem.'

peachy - glad to hear you were able to sell your SO place - I know what you mean about the HA being slow - we've found them most unhelpful at every turn so far. We are responsible for all internal maintenance , it's only the communal areas ie hallway, stairs etc which we pay service charge for them to maintain.