Part council ownership

Josie12

hiya

just wondering if anyone has heard of or is part of the schemes where the local council own part of your house? am looking at scheme called 'my choice open market' .

Basically, me and hubby are approx £30K in debt!!! and we are now at a point where wedont know how else to clear it. we moved to our current house in september 2006 and was supposed to clear all debt, but unfortunately our FA got his sums mixed up and it was a costly mistake!! to cut a very long story short, we found out when it was too late!!

I am currently on maternity leave, but am usually self employed. I only earn approx £4k and hubby is on £27,800K. Our mortgage, interest only, is due for renewal sept 2009. mortgage is approx £150K. anyone have any advice?

PS have one 3 year old and one 8 week old, so downsizing house is not an option, as we already are in a two bed.

help, help....

thanks

Alleycat

There are a variety of schemes based on shared ownership. The first is New Build Homebuy, then there's Ownhome and My Choice Homebuy which are two new schemes launched at the beginning of April. You can find out more information via your local council homebuy department or there is a thread on the house buying and renting board which someone working in this area has contributed to with loads of useful information.

All of the schemes have slightly different criteria and differences in the percentages. Such as New Build Homebuy, you buy a percentage (dependent on the specific development) and pay rent on the percentage you don't own. Ownhome is run via Places for People HA and the Coop Bank and you buy a percentage (using a Coop mortgage) and get a loan from the Coop for the rest (I think max loan is 40%) which has a nominal interest rate charged. My Choice Homebuy is run by 8 HAs such as Metropolitan and Moat and again you buy a percentage (not tied in to any specific lender) and then are charged a nominal interest rate for the percentage loan you get (again I think its max loan of 50%).

Edit to add: As you are already a home owner there are more restrictions as the schemes are predominantly for keyworkers, current council and HA tenants, statutarily homeless households and first time buyers.

LilySue

We're buying our house via shared ownership with Orbit Housing Association.

I found out about the scheme by phoning my local council. The scheme we are on was I think designed to take people off the local council housing list who were in the nearly able to afford a mortgage category!

The thing that I am not sure about is if these kind of schemes are open to existing home owners, and I think you may have to investigate this further

Josie12

Great thanks guys! Thats a real help...am keeping fingers crossed now!

Thanks again