shared ownership rent

cmanning_2

Firstly please accept my appologies if this has already been discussed in the forums. I only have a short period at work to use the web and searching the forums gave alot of results to read.

I have a question about shared ownership. I have a mortgaged 40% share in my apartment, I rent the other 60% from a non profit housing association (Accent Peerless in surry). My mortgage monthly out goings have obviously dropped as the rates have. My question is, should my monthly rent drop in price as the interest rates on the housing associations mortgage on the property does?

another question is: the apartment block opposite mine is owned by the same HA its newer alot nicer and the values are considerably higher yet my rent and service charge is higher per month for a similar 2 bed flat. do i have any way of slapping the HA to reduce my out goings to them?

I am paying a fortune on rent currently and I am finding that shared ownership is not really affordable housing. Cheers

poppysarah

Shared ownership is a raw deal.
What are your service charges?

Unlikely that your rent bit will drop but you could cheer someone up at the HA and ask them!

cmanning_2

My service charge is £85 for a 2 bed appartment

pinkshoes

The service charge in an older building is likely to be more, as it will require more maintenance.

As for the "rent" portion, then that won't change with an interest rate. However the HA obtained their money to fund the other 60% is their business, but you just pay them the agreed rent. If they have a loan for their %, then they'll be making money, and if interest rates go up, they'd be out of pocket. It works both ways!

robin_banks

The rent is independent of your mortgage, it will set by the housing association, as for your last comment re; affordable housing (or it not being) I can only agree wholeheartadly.

Kazby

Hi,

With regards to the service charge setting - this is something that I do for shared ownership properties as a part of my job and it's really dificult. I don't know Accent's procedure for setting their service charges but they way we do it is to put in as many actual costs as possible and estimate the rest in year one and then review and adjust it at the end of the year in line with actual costs incurred. The figure varies from building to building because they have different features so for example if a new building has a lot of glass in the facade there will be probably be higher charges for window cleaning, some buildings have lots of garden to look after so need a landscaping contract, others don't have any at all etc etc. If you've been in your home a while make sure you have received a breakdown of what you've been charged for and checked it out - I also live in a shared ownership flat and this year our service charge went down thanks to negotiations my landlord about what services we actually wanted.

And finally - if you're struggling do get in touch with Accent - I don't know what they're like but where I am the sooner people get in touch, the more likely we are to be able to help them. Hope that's useful!

Kazby

Hi,

With regards to the service charge setting - this is something that I do for shared ownership properties as a part of my job and it's really dificult. I don't know Accent's procedure for setting their service charges but they way we do it is to put in as many actual costs as possible and estimate the rest in year one and then review and adjust it at the end of the year in line with actual costs incurred. The figure varies from building to building because they have different features so for example if a new building has a lot of glass in the facade there will be probably be higher charges for window cleaning, some buildings have lots of garden to look after so need a landscaping contract, others don't have any at all etc etc. If you've been in your home a while make sure you have received a breakdown of what you've been charged for and checked it out - I also live in a shared ownership flat and this year our service charge went down thanks to negotiations my landlord about what services we actually wanted.

And finally - if you're struggling do get in touch with Accent - I don't know what they're like but where I am the sooner people get in touch, the more likely we are to be able to help them. Hope that's useful!

supermonkey

robin_banks wrote: »

The rent is independent of your mortgage, it will set by the housing association, as for your last comment re; affordable housing (or it not being) I can only agree wholeheartadly.

i disagree....could never have bought... but we managed shared ownership and our mortgage & rent combined are cheaper than it would cost to rent an identical house up the road.

robin_banks

supermonkey wrote: »

i disagree....could never have bought... but we managed shared ownership and our mortgage & rent combined are cheaper than it would cost to rent an identical house up the road.

Conversely it may also be the case that buying the thing outright might be cheaper than part-rent part buy which begs the question why not buy outright ?.

We looked at buying an S/O flat cominbed rent, s/c, mortgage £1,220 a month, this flat however looked exactly like a council flat and was on the edge of a rough estate, the HA were comparing with this flat with non-estate privately owned housing, i.e. not like-for-like and valuing it as such.

brit1234

Usally rents are linked to RPI in these schemes, this is likely to go negative. So when they next come to review your rent you may get a decrease if it falls below 0.

But as the others said, shared ownership is a bad idea.

supermonkey

robin_banks wrote: »

Conversely it may also be the case that buying the thing outright might be cheaper than part-rent part buy which begs the question why not buy outright ?.

We looked at buying an S/O flat cominbed rent, s/c, mortgage £1,220 a month, this flat however looked exactly like a council flat and was on the edge of a rough estate, the HA were comparing with this flat with non-estate privately owned housing, i.e. not like-for-like and valuing it as such.

Thats fair enough... doesn't sound like a good offer. We could never have offered to buy - had it confirmed by 2 IFAs that we wouldnt be able to borrow enough for a one bed flat where we live. Our shared ownership house is 3 bed, mortgage is £400 and rent 200. These rent at over £700