Selling Shared Ownership House - HA Insists on Minimum Sale Price

simplythebez

Hi,
My partner and I purchased 45% of a shared ownership new build a little over three years ago. Two daughters later we now need more space and so we need to move on. We'd done our home work previously with the HA, once the 2nd baby was on the way then the writing was on the wall. They provided us with documentation which stated we need to get a RICS registered valuation at our own cost and then they would market for us and if they couldn't sell it, then we could market it ourselves. Followed by the following paragraph:
"You need to provide us with a copy of this valuation before putting your home on the market and we will then let you know the maximum price that you can sell your share for, although you may sell for less than the valuation..."
Fair enough we thought, it's to help people get on the market and they don't want it exploited maybe. They were too busy to market the property for us so they let us do it ourselves from the off. We listed last week and already have an offer 6 days later.
RICS valuation: £298k
Listed at: £300k (Estate agent wanted us to list at a round number, we explained that HA said we couldn't sell for more than valuation, not a problem.)
Buyer offered: £295k wants to buy the full 100% of the property.
We want to accept, happy  with the offer. We assume we take the £3k shortfall out of our 45% equity, HA gets full value for their 55%, that is fair enough. Just checking this with the HA today before we formerly accept and now they aren't too sure. Lady we have been dealing with needs to check with their manager. Comes back to us later, no we can only sell for the full valuation fee or above now. The documentation is wrong and always has been and they need to get it changed. Even though we will be the ones that are taking the £3k hit, they still insist that this is the case. This documentation was supplied to us over 18 months ago and again recently. Does this sound right to anyone? Are they regulated and in anyway as looking around other HAs this doesn't seem to be the consistent rule. The buyer now wants a second viewing with her parents before she'll negotiate, if she doesn't get scared off we might even consider giving her the 3k to top her offer up to £298k just to get this done, we've built up a little bit of equity in our 45%.
Hope someone can offer some advice or shared experience. Thanks for reading.

izoomzoom

What is actually written on your lease agreement? That is the law that governs your sale - regardless of what the HA are saying.
We had a situation with our HA, who quoted half a clause in our lease .... the other half completely changed the meaning.
(we couldn't do something), they said (in writing).
The lease said, we couldn't do something, without the consent of the leaseholder .... but I had to spell that out to them.
Maybe your solicitor can help?

blue_max_3

I honestly think that the documentation forms part of the contract and binds them. To say it's wrong is completely not your problem. The solicitor should advise you. Luckily it's only £3k and I'm sure you can work it out in another way. 

simplythebez

izoomzoom said:

What is actually written on your lease agreement? That is the law that governs your sale - regardless of what the HA are saying.
We had a situation with our HA, who quoted half a clause in our lease .... the other half completely changed the meaning.
(we couldn't do something), they said (in writing).
The lease said, we couldn't do something, without the consent of the leaseholder .... but I had to spell that out to them.
Maybe your solicitor can help?

Thanks for the reply. Selling on is not actually covered in detail in the lease agreement. Only briefly mentions back to back stair-casing in terms of someone taking 100% ownership. I think solicitor may be the answer or drop the £3k which we were going to do anyhow, so it's probably the cheapest option. It's just so frustrating. I think shared ownership is a truly great thing and really helped us when we needed it, now our circumstances are different and we don't need it, but hearing of experiences like this genuinely put people off. The HA are so inconsistent in what they have told us in our dealings with them. I sometimes think that they make it up as they go along.

simplythebez

blue_max_3 said:

I honestly think that the documentation forms part of the contract and binds them. To say it's wrong is completely not your problem. The solicitor should advise you. Luckily it's only £3k and I'm sure you can work it out in another way. 

Thanks. I'm going to drop a note to our solicitor, but as you say, it's only £3k that we'd written off anyway, so in the interests of a quick and smooth sale...