Shared Ownership.

[SixDinnerSid]

DP and I are considering buying a house through the shared ownership scheme. Does anyone have any experience of this and how it worked out?

I bought a 30% share of an apartment in 2007 and sold in 2012. I would not recommend it. This was through London and Quadrant. There were problems from start to finish - the worst was selling the place. It took a year and was a complete farce due to the rules that we had to follow - they were sending people to see it who didn't have employment and therefore were unable to get a mortgage - this was after the flat had been allocated to them and they were attending a financial interview. This happened 8 times. A joke.

I have never seen a positive thread on shared ownership on here in 13 years.

I'll have to take a look at the other threads on here, this will be through Orbit in the East Midlands if anyone has experiences of them.

Re selling the place, I'm under the impression that you have to resell through the company & they find suitable people.

I shall get onto google again!

Look carefully at 'suitable'. I simply can't say anything positive whatsoever. Sorry if this is not what you want to hear.

Well I'll go against the grain then. We did it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Had problem after problem with flats or landlords. In the end we got a 2 bed house (30% share). It was far cheaper than renting. We sold it last year. Selling process is a bit of a pain because we had to let the HA 'market' it for 6 weeks first. They stuck it on their website which hardly anyone looks at. Then we were free to go through an EA like normal. The buyer just had to be approved by the HA. EA assured us he could easily sell our house very quickly. It sold to the first person to view through the EA. No messing about with offers etc as the price is the price. We were lucky enough to buy in the normal way but we were fully prepared to move on to another shared ownership when we thought we couldn't buy normally.

On phone so difficult to type long message but we're in SO and it's much better and stable than renting and we're happy. We have only been here a short while but it's given us an opportunity we'd have never had. It receives a lot of negative press but I think you have to go in with your eyes open and know what to expect.

I did it in Wiltshire through Bromford Housing - 50% share on a 2 bed flat.

The house was a New Build and had a lot of problems - not Bromford's fault, but getting the developer back to fix things was more complicated and took longer (as a result a small leak was left too long and turned into a huge problem)!

Buildings insurance was covered through our rent. We had to claim on it when our door was damaged. It was no more complicated than claiming on any other buildings insurance and the work was done promptly. We used a local company and they didn't come back and say they'd not been paid so I assume they were!

Selling - yes, there are a lot of loop holes. It had to be sold to somebody in the parish or in the neighbouring parish. Bromford added on loads of "fees" for advertising, selling etc, insisted on valuations ever 3 months at our cost. It could have been a nightmare. However, we were very lucky and knew somebody who fitted the criteria who wanted to buy. We had to pay out for the first valuation, they were then approved and bought the house. If we had had to put it on the market I can imagine it could have been a nightmare.

If you want to do any work on the house - you pay for it 100%, but the value you put on the house by doing it is split with the HA, so be careful of that.

All in all, I'd never have been able to move out of my parent's house if I'd not been accepted onto the scheme, but I feel the selling process could be a minefield.

I'd recommend it. We lived in our SO flat for three years without a hitch, only moved out last year. We sold it pretty quickly as well through the HA's own website, first buyer that viewed it went for it.

It was good as we were allowed to decorate and make cosmetic changes so it felt more like ours, plus it got us onto the property ladder and looked good on our credit rating when we came to buy our house, as we had already kept up a smaller mortgage.

It worked well for some friends of mine because (a) they bought the shared-ownership property at the right time, when property prices were increasing and (b) they were relatively young. This meant that after 3 years in the shared-ownership property they were able to sell and pocket their share of the increase in equity which was then enough for them to get a new 25 year mortgage on an entire property in a slightly less naice area of town.

I would be very very cautious if either you can't be sure of property prices increasing in the area, if your family might expand while you are in the SO property, or if you are pushing 40 and might not have 25 years of working life ahead of you once you are ready for the next step up the ladder. If any of these things apply, then only go ahead if you are pretty sure the SO place you are buying can be your "forever" home because you may not be able to move up the property ladder from there.

Thanks for the further replies, we are both young 20s so plenty of time to work and progress up the property ladder but right now this seems the only way possible to join it! I have 2 friends in SO housing, one recently moved and the other having been there for 2/3 years, both of their experiences have been positive so far but I'm cautious for all of the above reasons!

With the friends who have been there for a longer time, the house really feels like theirs with their choice of decoration, pets etc which is what I want. Has anyone had issues with having pets in them? I can't see anything online.

Hi SixDinnerSid

How did you get on? We too are looking to buy a SO with Orbit Homes, so I would be interested in how things are going!

We have lived in our house for ten years. It was so when we bought it but we now own it all and are in the process of selling it as we need somewhere bigger.

So has been great for us. Ok, we might have paid a bit more than we would've with a comparable 100% mortgage but it's what we could afford at the time.

It's miles better than renting anyway.

We've always treated ours exactly as we wanted. Pets, gardens, kitchens, bathrooms, windows etc.

Ours was with Midland Heart and beyond collecting the rent they weren't interested in what we did to it.

palomb thanks for that. We are pretty sure we are doing the right thing, but there's a lot of negative press about SO. If you don't mind me asking, did you negotiate on price at all at the beginning? I think our house is overpriced in the area, but not too sure on how much of a premium you would expect on a new build. I don't want to go straight into negative equity.

Also, when you staircased, was it difficult?

Also, when you owned 100% share, did you was it still leasehold, and did you have to offer it for sale through the HA first?

Sorry for all the questions! We're pretty desperate to get the one we are interested in, as it would save £350 a month (which we would save madly to staircase to 100% as quickly as possible).

I can't remember in any detail what happened when we bought it I know that the HA made the previous owner put it up at a certain amount, which we offered a bit under but when it came to the valuation our mortgage lender said it wasn't worth what we had offered and we got 10k I think knocked off.

The staircasing wasn't difficult. We felt a bit aggrieved that we have spent a lot on the house and, although they take some of your expenditure in to consideration they they value the part they own they still benefited from all out work and money. We decided to just be pragmatic about that though, Midland Heart are a business at the end of the day. We're not talking huge sums, 5k maybe. (house is worth £135k now)

It's not leasthold now. Midland Heart no longer have any claim to it.

It's be great for us, lovely home that we've treated as our own, nice area at a reasonable cost. When we bought it we could have got a mortgage for a two bed but they were all tiny and we'd have driven each other round the bend. This is a decent sized 3 bed with a double drive, massive garden in a lovely cul de sac. I would really recommend it.. As long as your mindset is that it is a home, and not an investment.

We bought our two bedroom semi via Orbit last year. Before that, we lived in a rather unpleasant HA flat, in a bit of a rough area. We wanted to buy our own place but struggled with saving a large enough deposit, everytine we thought we were close, house prices kept going up.

S/O wasn't something we had really looked into, we sort of stumbled upon it when we found a new build development we liked. Orbit was offering new build two and three bed houses on the development so we looked into it.

We saw plenty of horror stories but I think if you go into it informed, it's not an issue. For us, we intend to live here for a long time and we hope to staircase to 100% in a couple of years.

Re the price, our two bed semi was just under £170k which I thought we good, as we had been looking at other houses of the same size and spec for £180k.

The house itself is wonderful. The rooms are large, the garden is large, we have a huge driveway for four cars.

We do pretty much what we want with the house, the only thing we would need to ask permission for would be structural, say we wanted a conservatory or something.

Orbit were pretty good throughout the process, however I found it stressful from start to finish. With Orbit, you have to apply for the house in the same way you do for HA properties, they go on a website and you bid (for us at least, as the council had a say in who got them). We had to qualify and there were lots of criteria, couldn't earn more than £60k, couldn't be a homeowner, had to have connections to the area, had to currently live in the area (we didn't though). The Council then shortlisted who they want, for our house, 46 people applied. Orbit then go through the list in number order, seeing if the people are eligible for S/O and seeing if they can actually get a mortgage, etc. Luckily for us, we weren't near the top of the shortlist but all the people below us either couldn't get a mortgage or didn't realise it was S/O

We purchased 60% of the house, paid a 5% deposit. Our rent portion is just over £100 a month so it's not expensive.

If it wasn't for S/O, we would still be in the manky flat!

My last flat was ownership on a 50% share.

I think shared ownership can work but you need to know rules of your housing association. I wouldn't recommend a flat as the service charge increased a ridiculous amount in 3 years, but I would do it again with a house.

Really research your housing association