Shared ownership

[lollypops321]

Anyone here in a shared ownership property or know much about them?
Me, my OH and DD have been on the council housing list for 2 years and are no closer so looking at our other options and this seems like the only realistic and affordable option for us but find the whole thing confusing!
TIA

I know some people seem to have been ok with shared ownership
However it is a different game now.
SO may look cheaper initially and you will be sold a "dream". However your home will monetised and used as an income stream for investors. Do careful research on onerous ground rent, estate fees, service charges, permission fees, costs to extend lease if leasehold etc. Many thousands of people are being financially choked by unregulated and uncapped fees. SO can be a nightmare model of home buying.
Do not believe anything the sales staff tell you. If you do go ahead, do not use one of their "recommended" solicitors, no matter what theats or incentives are offered to do so.
Check out the National Leasehold Campaign Facebook group - nearly 16,000 members to hear the truth of Shared Ownership today.

My son moved into a shared ownership home this time last year. It's worked out brilliantly for him - he has a home that he can call his own and pays much less than he would renting similar even taking his mortgage and 'rent' into account. The HA that own the freehold have even reduced the cost of the service charge (down from £20 to £6pcm in that time). Resales seem to be a much better buy than a brand new home - this is what he bought. Make sure that if you purchase 100% at some point (if you want to) the house would become Freehold.

@ShellieEllie Do you mind me asking where abouts he is and who the house builder is e.g.Taylor Wimpy? Bellway? Thanks. It's good to know there are some decent ones still around! Who deals with the communal areas?

We had a really good experience with shared ownership. Beautiful 3 bed house and the combined rent/mortgage was similar to housing association rent. Similar properties privately rented were a few hundred more per month. A slight increase in rent/service charge each year but that was the same for houses fully rented out by the housing association.

When it came to selling we sold the house instantly (we were also able to sell via the housing association so had no estate agent fees to pay)... a lot of the shared ownership properties round here generally sell very fast. We made a bit of profit on the share as well.

That said, different housing associations can really vary so do your research! For example many s/o properties you will be able to buy additional shares and own outright eventually but this might not be the case for others. Some properties you can sell your share for whatever you want, however others the housing association will only let you sell at what an independent valuer has valued it. And so on.

@lollypops321 We are in the South West and a local Housing Association (Westward) had the houses built on their behalf I believe. There aren't really any communal areas other than a shared visitors parking area. The local council adopted the roads on the estate so they maintain them.

Thanks everyone for the replies. It's good to hear that they are worth it. We'd love to buy outright, but it just seems impossible to raise a deposit and get a mortgage big enough!
For those that have shared ownership where do you start? Did you go through the building company directly, the housing association or estate agents. I've seen one within budget through right move but I'm not sure where else to look.

Sorry, I'm really useless at this kind of stuff and google is confusing me even more

When i bought mine I contacted the HA who then told me what i needed to do at every step after that. I adored my flat and worked out a lot cheaper than private renting although when i put mine up for sale the HA was bought out by another (can't remember the original ones but bought out by Clarion Housing) my buyer had a terrible time getting hold of them and they have put charges up significantly since i sold so i would probably avoid that particular company if you can!

@lollypops321

A lot will be on Rightmove (it’s always good to register with estate agents as well though as some people choose not to have their property online, plus they can alert you if anything is about to come up before it is listed). Some housing associations will also have properties listed (sometimes owners will have to list it purely on the HA website for a few weeks before it goes on the main market) so it is definitely worth contacting all your local housing associations to see if they have anything, they may also have info on any new builds they have coming available.

If you know of any new housing developments being built then the building company will often be able to tell you which housing association will be dealing with the shared ownerships.

Thank you for all your advice it's really helpful to me. I'll be having a look around while I'm off over christmas

My daughter is in a SO property which she adores and the costs (50% mortgage) are lower than the local rental for a similar property. She never would have been able to afford a whole house otherwise. It is a very well build property by a local building company. However, in her particular case the house is in a 'designated rural area' even though she is in a town and that means ownership is capped at 80% so she will never be able to own it outright on current terms. Also, if she wants to make any alterations e.g. she wanted to have an outside tap put in and an aerial socket installed in the kitchen diner, she has to go through a formal, lengthy application process with the HA even though they only theoretically own half the house. She'll be contesting this i the new years as she's been waiting weeks.

I had a SO flat in London from 2013 to 2016 and thought it was great, my only regret is that i didn't buy more than my 30% share at the time. I can't remember the website i saw it on but it was a specific SO property website, equivalent of rightmove.

I looked at a few properties and each company had different processes: some were key workers only (i was not), some would have an application window and choose the best applicant at the end, some were first to put offer in got it (that was mine).

There's a bit more faffing with legal as you've got a three way transaction happening, rather than just buyer and seller. Also you do all the legwork when selling (ie showing people around) yet the housing association take a fee from you, cheeky fuckers.

With ground rent etc the housing association were difficult at times as they kept trying to increase fees and overcharge for things. Fortunately everyone in our building got together and pushed back their bullshit, so it wasn't too bad in the end, but housing association will try it on so be warned. It's the same for any lease holding company I'd imagine.

I loved my flat. I removed some lights, rewired other lights, installed new wardrobes in one of the bedrooms, repainted the whole flat, and it looked great. Didn't have to ask the housing association. And it was so nice to know it was mine.

I'd say go for it if you've done your research on the company offering.

I was in a 50% SO; it was the only option available to me at the time because I couldn't source the deposit for a full mortgage in time.

It was on a new build flat; I lived there ~9 years and it was fine. Considerably more expensive/month than a standard mortgage on a comparable property when you factor in mortgage repayments/rent & site fees.

This was with Erimus Housing / Thirteen Group.

I "sold" the place earlier this year when I moved in with my partner, which was a bit of a trial (the sale, not the partner). Either my solicitors (or the sellers, or both) didn't seem to understand shared ownership at all.

There were no chains involved but the process was still a torturous 6-months to-and-fro between myself, my solicitors, the buyer, the buyers solicitors and Thirteen group.

Net result; I ended up taking a considerable loss on the property value (~20%) as I bought it was a new build at full price and it devalued a lot in the time I lived there.

Big regrets from my side were: no fibre broadband while I lived there as the company that built the flats didn't put the fibre in at the time, and that the shared ownership agreement prohibited pets of any kind.

Can I ask how much deposit you had to have, 5 or 10% and how much you had to pay in additional fees. I want to get a rough idea of how much we will need before we start properly looking. Thank you

My deposit was 5%

Yeah i think it was 5% of mortgage amount, no stamp duty, solicitors fees which was about £1000 i think, can't remember any other costs

We have just staircased to 100% ownership of our house. We initially purchased 55% of it as a new build, now we own it all - it's actually cheaper as the entire mortgage per month is less than what the mortgage + rent + service charge was.

It worked well for us as it got us in the housing ladder with a 5% deposit, the rent portion was fairly cheap and the service charge element was less than £20 a month. When we purchased the remaining shares, we also ensured the freehold transferred to us as well.

We now have around £40k of equity in the house as well, which will act as our deposit for if we move again.

I would advice that S/O only really "works" if you are in it for the long term, not as cost effective if you plan to move within a few years. Get the biggest % you can afford at the time as each time you staircase your have to pay legal fees and stamp duty, etc so best to do it in two goes (initial and remainder).

Around here, S/O sell really quickly. Resales go fast as well, two sold nearby within the last six months and both sold in less than two days!

In terms of costs, our deposit was 5%, solicitors fees were about £1k, mortgage advisor was £200, HA fees (application fees and reservations etc) came to around £700. Removal fees around £1k.

Plus you need to budget for flooring as they generally only come with vinyl in the bathrooms and kitchen - everything else would be bare concrete/floorboards.

When Staircasing, we didn't provide a deposit as we had equity in the house, legal fees were £1.5k, stamp duty was £500 (weirdly worked out due to SO), mortgage advisor was £200, HA fees (application to staircase, etc) was about £200

Thanks so much for all your advise. Now to get saving!!

Here's a link for you:
www.helptobuy.gov.uk/equity-loan/find-helptobuy-agent/

Thanks for the link

I live in a SO house and love it, moved into it brand new and it's def worth the money.

You still need a fair deposit and about £3000 to cover solicitors fees etc.

I bought a 50% share and rent plus mortgage is about £550 a month (new build, two bed house in nice area.)

www.sharetobuy.com/shared-ownership-london/
this is for (obviously! ) London I would agree with pp that second hand/preowned (nearly new) properties are a better investment - on this website once you have logged in, you can access information like minimum deposit, management fees & ground rent if memories serves me right ds purchased his first home this way - this website deals with all the shared ownership in London area

In near London (hence the inability to rent or buy) I'll take a look.

I was also wondering how long the process took to buy your properties as I'm assuming theres more to it then buying 100% of a property

From memory took 5-6 months for legal stuff to process, both buying and selling. Mine wasn't new build

We purchased ours from new and from start to finish it took about three months.

When we staircased to full ownership it again took about three months in all - our HA improve a three month completion deadline - although both times it was them who held things up and caused delays!