Shared Ownership - Genesis - Atlas House, N17

tek-monkey

Dont exchange without a guarantee of completion date, and preferably with penalties attached if they don't comply. Its bad enough buying a house that doesn't exist, but if it may never exist and the value was decided before they even started building?

But I'm not a gambler, I suppose if prices had rocketed you'd be quids in.

BexInLondon

I don't want to open up a can of worms but in our experience, and that of lots of our friends here in East London, Shared Ownership (we're with Genesis) has worked pretty well. We know a few people who've sold and they had no problems. Others have sought and been granted permission to sublet. We had no problem getting a mortgage (Nationwide) despite our building being 12 storeys (and our flat being on the 11th and 12th). We now live in a gorgeous, very well built home and our monthly outgoings are less than they would be if we were renting something much smaller. I'm not saying Shared Ownership is perfect, or that there aren't problems, but there are a lot of success stories too. The price of ours was definitely not over-inflated, as we got it 6 months ago for a third of the price it was planned at as it was one of the hardest hit by the crash.

All that said, your development sounds like a bit of a no-go in this case. Try and sting them for a bit extra in return for the hassle. But don't give up on SO!

tek-monkey

I agree entirely, signed up on a shared equity place myself. There are a lot of haters for the schemes, but if they cost similar money to renting what really are the problems? Lots of people here slag them off every chance they get, but none has ever given me good enough reasons that they don't work.

If your choise is rent for 10 years to get a deposit, or buy a SO/SE now and save the same amount of money, renting is the dumb option in my eyes. In 10 years you have similar liquid funds, but also have 10 years equity in your property (or rather your share of it). Prices have to crash much worse than over the last 3 years to wipe that out.

Fire_Fox

The developer has asked you informally to pull out, why not formally?? If you have exchanged contracts and you pull out the developer can claim against you for breach of contract and all losses incurred. That means they can keep the deposit and ask for the difference between the price you agreed to pay and the next seller which can be tens of thousands.