Shared Ownership // Document Checks Process

[ginandpizza]

I’ve posted about this before on here but to cut a very long story short I was in an abusive relationship which I managed to (finally) leave 18 months ago. Unfortunately said abusive ex took a huge amount of debt out it my name and whilst the police are currently involved, my credit score Is unfortunately very bad.

Last month I unexpectedly found out I’d be getting 45k in an inheritance from a house sale due to complete next week. Originally I’d planned to stick it in an ISA and top it up with savings until my credit score improved however this week I stumbled across a shared ownership house I fell in love with that I could afford a 25% share of outright with my inheritance. I rang the Housing Association to enquire whether I could buy the 25% outright then staircase up once my credit score improved. Surprisingly they sent me to their finance people who have done an affordability assessment which I’ve passed (the rent for the remaining 75% share would actually be £100 less a month than I’m paying now) and I’ve now been asked to submit bank statements/payslips/ID documents etc…

My current HA house I rent has so many bad memories and is falling apart with no heating, no working kitchen and a whole load of damp So I would give anything for this to all pan out and finally be my fresh start but this has happened so quickly I haven’t really had much time to research the process. One niggle I have is that my bank statements are a bit messy- take out coffees, a lot of takeaways recently as my current rental is getting the kitchen replaced. They do also show that I pay my rent and bills on time too but i can’t help but worry! Does anyone have any experience of the process and timescales that they could share and also what kind of things they will be looking for in the statements? Im not sure if they would be less strict with the checks given I wouldn’t actually be taking out a mortgage. The HA today said they have to do certain audits as it’s a government scheme

Any experiences/info people could share would be much appreciated ☺️

I'm about to complete on my shared equity house OP. Like you, I am buying my share outright and yes, they still check all your paperwork just the same as if you were needing a mortgage.

It's taken about 14 weeks to get to this point (they pushed for me to sign quickly and wanted an 8 week turnaround, which I was happy to do, but in the end it's taken much longer due to searches and checks taking a long time to come back).

I'm sure some sales go through quicker, but actually none on the estate I'm buying have been less than 12 weeks. Paperwork takes as long as it takes 🤷‍♀️

My bank statements were 'messy' too but ultimately not an issue. They just want to see that you pay everything in a timely way and that you actually can afford it.

Good luck 🤞

We cleared the financial checks really quickly and got our AIP within 2 days of being passed from the HA finance checks to the mortgage broker (who checked affordability for the HA, he wasn't just for getting a mortgage). As you're buying your share outright, I'd think you could get through that bit quickly too.

It took 11 weeks to exchange and we then completed after 13, but we could've exchanged and completed on the same day if we hadn't needed to tie it into giving notice on our rental.

I reckon the HA's solicitor added 6 weeks of delays as it took 4 weeks to answer enquiries and 4 weeks to resolve a plan issue. So it could've been much faster.

Oh yeah, ditto to messy bank statements as we hadn't intended to buy when we did, so hadn't been good for the mortgage purpose at all!

Thank you @OldBeyondMyYears I hope you enjoy your new home once you get moved in 😊

Gosh @NoWordForFluffy thats a long time for the solicitor to get back to you! Glad to hear it’s not just me with the messy statements, I know they’re probably looking for concerning things like payday loans and gambling as opposed to counting how many times someone went to costa in a week but it’s still a bit anxiety inducing 😂

thank you both! Your perspectives have been super helpful. I best get buckeld up for some longer timescales than I thought. Not a good time to be an impatient person ha 😂