Shared partnerships

pors99

Hi
My outlaws live in france and are seeking to buy a property in the uk. Just a small bolthole so when they come and visit they don't have to stay at ours on peoples sofas etc.

They have seen a flat for 76k under a shared owner ship scheme. Now they have understand the basic principal that you own half and some else owns the other half (a company called New Futures Group).

My Question what more is there to this arrangement? what are the pros and cons? good thing bad thing any help would be apreciated

thanks

Cannon_Fodder

http://www.mendiphousing.co.uk/building-the-future/shared-ownership/
and http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Housing/Home-ownership/low-cost-home-ownership.en

explain a certain amount.

As you can see from http://www.glosha.co.uk/main.cfm?Type=HHO ,which for some reason is supposed to be New Futures website but turns out to be Gloucester Housing Association, there are 5 different types of "Homebuy".

As it might not even be Homebuy, but some other flavour of Shared Ownership, of which there are also a few, it would be necessary to know exactly which scheme and development was involved, to be sure of not talking at cross purposes.

The Bristol link seems the best one for details...including eligibility criteria.

I suspect the Eligibility criteria will not apply to your outlaws, though. Owning a property already seems to be a no-no, except in exceptional circumstanes. I don't think you can call needing a "holiday" home, exceptional...!

The wider, general view, especially on here, is that these schemes are not great. If you take a 50% stake, due to affordability, and pay a mortgage for 25 years, then the other 50% cannot become yours for 50 years in total.

Needing a 50 year mortgage to get a "small bolt-hole" is insanity...50 years of interest...why bother?

Depending on the exact scheme, you can end up being responsible for all the bad things about ownership - fixing the roof, boiler, etc, whilst the holder of the other half of equity gets an easy ride.

When you sell, you have probably dropped out of eligibility, so the equity you take to the next place is half what it might have been, denting your deposit/LTV options, but you have to take on a full price house, which must be a shock to the system/bank account.

Falsely maintaining artifically high prices, is the short version.