Shared Ownership advantages and disadvantages please

jonas123

I've been in a SO property for nearly 2 years so far, and although it does worry me from time to time, it has been fine so far.

I bought 50% of a re-sale property. I believe that the current leases on new builds are much worse (restrictions even when you staircase to 100%) whereas my lease was written up in 1999 so is less restrictive.

For me it made sense at the time - I got to live in one of the best parts of London, the rent is much lower than mortgage payments would be, and I've since had a large enough pay rise to consider buying the other half. The value of the property has also appreciated significantly.

However I do still worry that if I can't staircase to 100%, I'll be stuck with 50% of a property I can't sell. The conditions on buying and selling are also rubbish - for instance when you want to staircase, you have to pay for all the admin costs of the housing association. You as the owner seem to take most of the risk and the housing association gets half of any benefit!

Looking back, I would never buy a new build SO property - they all seem overpriced. If you're lucky, you'll find an undervalued re-sale property like I did and benefit in the future. So far, no regrets!

The_Palmist

I do not know brit1234 or any other members and can't be bothered with going through pages and pages of discussion but if brit1234 is trying to dissuade people from shared ownership then you should see him as a friend.

gaz141

emmah33 wrote: »

Has anyone bought a house on shared ownership that can tell me how long it takes between offer acceptance and completion, we are on week 8 now and getting a bit fed up now. Thanks, Emma.

I got offered in late March and finally got my keys the end of June, this was a newbuild so I had to wait until the property had been officially handed over from the builder to the HA. I probably would have been ready to go by week 8 as all the paperwork had been done by then, but had to wait.

Elfbert

I put in my offer early January, completed in late July.

Most of that was down to the seller's solicitors/the seller being a bit useless, and HSBC insisting on using Countrywide, who moved more slowly than a glacier and kept losing things.

Good luck.

cpheonix

Thanks to all for some helpful information. It does make me laugh though when people say house prices are falling/will fall. I can't say for other parts around the country but London is certainly not heading that way (and hasn't been for years).

I'm in the process of buying SO and from what I've heard from friends who's bought outright, there's not much difference in the actual process. I guess I'll have a better opinion in a few months.

However, what I wanted to say is that my partner and I had a choice between buying outright in an undesirable part of London, or buy SO in an area we really wanted to be in. At the end of the day, it's what you prefer but from what we could afford, we'd never have been able to buy in the location we wanted. SO gave us that opportunity.

ruslanuk2015

Have you completed your SO purchase?


I am looking into buying one 3 bed new build. They all seem to come with communal heating nowadays and this bit worries me as there are some critical reviews about communal heating.


Has anyone got communal heating in their apartments? Any experience, both good or bad?