Ways To Buy Your Home

Shared ownership

The Government’s Shared Ownership scheme is one of the most effective and affordable ways to get a home of your own. Here you buy a part share of a property (initially between 10% to 75% of the full market value depending on affordability and when the property was built), then pay a rent on the remainder to a housing association, local authority or developer. Buying a share in the property means you will need a smaller deposit (5-10% for a mortgage) to cover the share you buy. If you wish, you can increase your share as time goes by, sometimes even up to 100%, and this is known as ‘staircasing’. A resale is where the current owner of a shared ownership property wishes to sell and is marketing the property to find a buyer. In this situation you will buy the share or more that the seller owns and pay a rent on the remainder as with a new build shared ownership home.

Staircasing

As a leaseholder of a shared ownership property bought either new, as a resale or via social homebuy, you can, if you wish buy further shares of your property. This process is known as “Staircasing”, enabling you to own a greater proportion of your home. The greater the share you buy of your home, the less rent you pay to your landlord. If you Staircase to 100% you become an outright owner and pay no rent.

You will need to check your lease for the specific detail on when you can staircase and by how much as these differ based on the date the lease was initially granted but generally this is in 5-10% multiples.

The price you pay for the share will be determined by a Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) valuation which you the leaseholder will have to pay for. This valuation will determine the current full market value of your home to which the share price is determined. This could be more or less than the initial share you bought depending on the property market.

The valuation is valid for 3months, and your purchase of the share must happen within the timeframe. It is therefore worthwhile talking to one of our friendly and professional mortgage advisors before considering staircasing to review your finances and ensure together we can secure you additional mortgage borrowing if you need to.

From April 2021 as a result of the Governments Social Housing White Paper reforms new shared ownership leases will be issued to homes built with Government funding from this date. In these leases, you will be able to buy shares in your property previously, or you can buy 1% each year for the initial 15years. Your landlord will write to you each year with the price to buy this share which will be determined by the House Price Index for the relevant property type classification calculated by the Office of National Statistics and published by the Land Registry by the local authority.

Our regular mortgage health checks will benefit you when considering staircasing or other personal goals you may have.

Mortgage Guarantee

A UK wide government scheme to help to increase the supply of 5% deposit mortgages for credit-worthy households by supporting lenders to offer these products through a government backed guarantee on new 95% loan to value mortgages until June 2025. To be eligible for this scheme you do not need to be a first-time buyer but you will need to find a deposit of 5% of the value of the home you wish to buy. The property must not exceed £600,000.

Right to Buy

If you’re a council tenant in England the Right to Buy scheme could help you buy the home you rent with a discount of up to £102,400 (£136,400 in London). You may also be eligible for Preserved Right to Buy if you were a council tenant who’s property was transferred to a Housing Association as part of a stock transfer.