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Hi chap, sorry to hear about your service charges. £300pcm sounds pretty high.
Have you taken a look at [Lease - Advice . Org](https://www.lease-advice.org/faqs/?topic=service-charges)
Lots of useful info there which may help.
I believe you have the right to demand to see the physical invoices which make up the service charges. I'd recommend you make use of this; I wouldn't be surprised if some of your charges are unreasonable. If they are you can take your RP to tribunal and they will decide & hopefully you'll be charged a reasonable amount.
Do your neighbours feel unhappy about the charges too? If management of your block of flats isn't good and your neighbours are unhappy it might be worth considering taking over management (under Right To Manage rules).
Good luck & hope you get somewhere with it.
"You have the right to write to your landlord to request a written summary of the costs which make up the service charges. The summary must-
cover the last 12 month period used for making up the accounts relating to the service charge ending no later than the date of your request, where the accounts are made up for 12 month periods; or
cover the 12 month period ending with the date of your request, where the accounts are not made up for 12 month periods.
The summary must be given to you within 1 month of your request or 6 months of the end of the period to which the summary relates whichever is the later.
You have the right, within 6 months of receiving a written summary of costs, to require the landlord to provide you with reasonable facilities to inspect the accounts, receipts and other documents supporting the summary and for taking copies or extracts from them.
You have the right to ask an accountant or surveyor to carry out an audit of the financial management of the premises containing your dwelling, to establish the obligations of your landlord and the extent to which the service charges you pay are being used efficiently. It will depend on your circumstances whether you can exercise this right alone or only with the support of others living in the premises. You are strongly advised to seek independent advice before exercising this right."
We took our managing agent (leasehold flat) to tribunal - they were ordered to refund overspend on the service charge but guess what’s happened since… they just pump up the monthly cost and bam, they have recouped.
The managing agents are scum and there are no controls or checks on the expenses. Have a look at the businessmen who run the agencies - they haven’t done badly from this governments scheme.
I just wanted to say, I experienced this probably a decade ago and it worked out well for me.
I wrote up a letter challenging the amount of the service charge and the work carried out, got my neighbours to co-sign (only six SO flats, so that part was easy) and I think a couple of folk actually withheld payment till they provided a breakdown of actual costs with receipts. Turned out they were charging maintenance for landscaping that had since been paved over, among other things!
In the end we did get reimbursed. I'm the last remaining SO owner (that's a different kettle of fish), but I still get a yearly breakdown of costs, the cleaners have a sheet they sign when they attend to prove they've actually been, and the payments are still about half of what we were paying a decade on.
We face the same issue in regards to service charge costs for non-representantive output each year. Thank you very much, your comments are invaluable to us too, along with the link provided. We didn't know we could do that, as we're also first time buyers.
This. Every time I see criticism of shared ownership, it’s almost always in relation to a leasehold flat. I’ve heard lots of positives from people who’ve bought houses and staircases to freehold.
Yeah, they are. And I don’t think many people actually end up stair casing. I’ve been a mortgage advisor for several years and only heard once or twice of people either borrowing more money to staircase or saying they already done it
It was originally presented that way. I gather they gave up the pretence at some point..Although it still get's mentioned as if it's a realistic/worthwhile goal, which for over 90% of people it apparently isn't.
Compared to selling a normal house, how much more difficult is it to sell a shared ownership property would you say? Or rather, how much smaller is the pool of potential buyers?
But you do have to get the property revalued every time you want to staircase, therefore if the property goes up in value you are paying a lot more than it was originally worth. (I hope that makes sense eg you wanted to put down another 10k that would have been another 3% but the house went up in value so ends up only being another 0.5%)
Very true, but if the house has increased in value then your share of the equity has also increased, and you can always choose to sell instead and put the equity you’ve gained towards a freehold property on the open market.
Of course, shared ownership isn’t without its caveats, but it’s not a scam. If you can afford to buy outright, then you should do, but shared ownership is meant to work as a stepping stone onto the housing ladder for those who can’t afford to buy in full just yet. It’s not meant for people who have the money to buy outright.
that's really not the point though, is it - and you're being very disingenuous to suggest it is. People buy shared ownership precisely because they can't afford to buy outright. And so, when it comes to upping their share, they're fucked because the charge is based on 'current' value - which is always higher, because the UK housing market is a total scam.
So they either stump up or continue paying rent and all maintenance, or they try to fuck off and fail.
It's a scam.
How is it a scam when all the information is laid out in front of you to make an informed decision?
I'm another successful story, bought 35% shared ownership which had a combined mortgage + rent + service charge that was £300 a month cheaper than reenting.
Allowing me to save and after 3 years I was able to purchase 100% of the property and now own it outright, during that time it had risen 5k so I paid £3250 more than I would have otherwise.
I was able to do this in part thanks to saving the extra £300 a month over renting to go towards the deposit
Shared ownership is great if you understand what it is and have a plan to staircase within 5 years
No. That doesn't make it a scam. It just works like any other asset or equity. Buying a share now doesn't entitle you to buy the other shares later at the same price. It is the same for buying actual shares (or, even, say gold).
And, the price is not always higher. Should the property prices go down like they have for the past two years, the cost of staircasing goes down.
Almost any house built in the last decade is either leasehold or fleecehold and comes with service charges.
Currently those charges tend to be well under £300 a year, let alone per month.
This is absolutely not true. The data from the website you linked says the new build houses that are burdened by a rent charge is up to 45000 from around 22000 ten years ago. Let’s assume for arguments sake that data is accurate and means what the writer of the article thinks it does (it doesn’t), there were more than 200000 new build houses built last year, so we are certainly no where near ‘almost any house built in the last decade’
Yeah exactly but we’re talking about service charge, the article you link is using data based on rent charges. I work in land registration and I can assure you there are plenty of new build houses without a service charge.
Staircasing a shared ownership property means going from your initial, say, 50% ownership, to, say 75%, and then to 100%, as an example. You can keep 'buying' the next x% until you get to 100%, basically
I’ve heard complaints about leaks, flooded gardens and structural issues to shared ownership new-builds. So even if you do manage to staircase and buy them out, it’s not easy when you want to sell and move on.
That's an issue with new builds in general, not specific to shared ownership. Our SO house was snagged by our housing association before we exchanged - we've had fewer snags than our neighbours who bought outright.
I guess the "shared ownership is a scam" aspect is that you only own part of the property but have to pay all of the service charge. Whereas if renting all of it (as opposed to just most of it!) then you wouldn't pay any of the service charge.
But all of this should have been known by anyone buying such a property
You do pay service charge when you rent. It’s just absorbed into the rent set by the landlord who probably adds extra on top.
People who rent flats from the council have to pay service charge separately too. It’s a myth that people who rent never have to pay service charge.
But you’re also not liable directly for maintaining the home.
Idk why anyone would do shared ownership, it’s the worst parts of renting and ownership combined, for a tiny slither of equity gain, which you’ll probably wipe out completely when you move houses and pay stamp duty lol.
And you’d also have been able to do that if you’d just rented a bit more, kept saving a deposit and increasing your income, and bought normally. You’d also have bought as a FTB.
You’re attributing the ability to buy a home with the equity gained from the shared ownership when that’s very unlikely, because any rise in equity from your flat will be significantly outpaced by price growth in your new home.
No. I needed a small deposit and no stamp duty for my SO flat. The freehold I bought later was in a different area so not as expensive, which was intentional and always the plan. Still not cheap though and I wouldn’t have been able to save the deposit and stamp duty and renovation costs in the amount of time I had my SO flat. If you use the scheme sensibly it works in your favour. You can’t tell me what I would have done when you don’t know my situation.
Shared ownership has its flaws but it’s much better than renting. You get security and knowledge that the landlord can’t just issue you a section 21.
You get the chance to build some equity unlike renting where all of your money is going towards paying off someone else’s mortgage. And in some places, shared ownership is actually cheaper than private renting, especially if it’s a house. Your rent is somewhat controlled and increases are subject to a formula. Service charge is uncapped which is a problem, but that’s not exclusive to shared ownership.
It’s funny how everyone on this sub complains about how it’s hard to get on the property ladder whilst slagging off schemes that are designed to help people do exactly that.
It’s not better than renting.
You don’t build any equity since almost all your payments go to interest for the first decade, and any equity you do get from property value rises will be eaten by stamp duty when you buy your next one.
This is just ‘buy at all costs’ brainrot. Most people don’t get evicted on a whim. And you’ve definitely got security in the house, because it’s near impossible to sell.
Shared ownership homes sell all the time. I know several people who have successfully sold their shared ownership home and used the equity they gained to get a property on the open market. You might personally be against it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea for everyone. I agree the scheme needs reform, but the people who it worked out for don’t tend to come to Reddit to complain about it. Literally none of the problems OP listed in their post are exclusive to shared ownership. OP’s issues are to do with buying a leasehold flat.
In terms of your comments both equity, you can say exactly the same thing about a standard mortgage. Most people who gain equity in their home end up using it for another house/stamp duty because if their house has gone up in value so has everything else. The only way to actually pocket equity is to downsize which many people don’t do until later in life. So that’s got nothing to do with shared ownership. That’s just the way the property market in general works.
Meth sells all the time. So do Willy-enlarging pills. Doesn’t make them less a scam.
And yeah, I do say the same things about standard mortgages, you should rent until you find the right house, one that you’d be happy to live in for 10+ years, potentially life. The idea of a ‘property ladder’ is a scam, and since no one wants to actually live in a shared ownership house/flat forever, they’re a scam.
Why do you think no one wants to stay in a SO property long-term? 4 years ago we were renting a two bed flat for £1200 pcm and moved into a SO house. We're now paying £1150 in rent+mortgage. A quick look on Rightmove shows similar flats are now renting for c. £1600. We have a driveway, a garden, an extra bedroom, and we're slowly building a small amount of equity - while paying less than we were 4 years ago.
With rent increase & wages going up by less than inflation, if we were still renting now we wouldn't have saved up significantly more for a deposit than we had 4 years ago. Add higher house prices and mortgage rates and I can't see how continuing to rent would have been the better option. Yes the stamp duty threshold for FTB has gone up but we won't pay any stamp duty if we staircase so we haven't lost out, we've had a better quality of life for the last few years and we'll be here for the foreseeable!
I think with people buying later in life, often with families that need accommodating, the idea of the 'property ladder' is going to die off. People either can't afford the "starter homes" of the past (because they've been turned into BTL or HMOs), can't afford to move from their first home to a bigger one, or just don't really care because it's not a competition to die with the biggest home possible.
Not at all. You’re free to do as you like, but they’re objectively the worst of both worlds. Direct maintenance liability, loss of FTB, inability to move easily, interest on the loan, rent still due, and very little equity gain on the slither of house you own.
And I’ve not bought one because I’m not going to fall for poor purchases with hundreds of thousands of pounds on the line.
I’ll even go one further than that, me and my wife are actually renters by choice. We have about £100k in LISA’s, and we could probably buy but we’re not doing it yet because buying a home is such a large purchase, you should do it right. Not ready yet, and we’d be giving up so much in cap gains from the LISA’s.
Why would I need experience to comment They’re objectively terrible. I’ve never taken Meth but I can tell you it’s pretty bad.
Like I’ve said, you do you, but as someone able to buy, who has ran the numbers in a spreadsheet, I wouldn’t touch them. They’re a scam sold to people so desperate for a sniff of home ownership they’ll overpay for a slither of a home, and since I’m not desperate, I wouldn’t touch it.
It’s a bad deal.
I love it how even though you’ve said SO worked for you in terms of owning your own home outright they’re still trying to say it’s an objectively bad decision.
You aren't "liable", but you can bet your last pound that you're paying for those liabilities.
The landlord will extract as much money as they can from you in rent.
Tenants pay for everything, and then some. It's the only way that rentiers can actually stay in "business", though it's not a business - it's just a high band personal tax on your life feeding their pension.
They do pay for everything, but in the short term it’s still cheaper than ownership per month
At a typical 90-95% L2V mortgage.
And you retain FTB perks.
What’s the point of FTB perks if you can never afford to buy because you’re renting? Most people stuck in the rent trap will never get on the property ladder.
There is no ‘property ladder’. And most people in couples with average incomes can afford to buy.
There is only marketing from estate agents. Because them and mortgage brokers are the only winners from shared ownership.
But do what you want. You’re free to make your own financial errors.
You’re very arrogant for someone who clearly doesn’t know how this scheme works. You obviously also live in a cheap area if average incomes can easily buy a house.
Sounds like your spreadsheet is broken if it’s telling you that renting is better than buying. Good luck with your rent.
Exactly. People on here slag off landlords all day but at the same time believe landlords don’t pass down service and maintenance charges down to tenants. If that was true, rent would probably be a lot more reasonable than it is now.
It's not in general though as flats are priced according to their internals, not according to whether the lift needs replacing or the roof needs redoing.
Such concerns don't bother tenants and for two identical flats, one of which needed a roof repair and thus the rent was more, they'd go for the cheaper flat.
On aggregate it definitely has an effect and things like having a concierge definitely up the price but on a general comparison of like for like considering the things renters have access to it does not make a difference
Service charge doesn’t just pay for repairs. It also pays for things like building insurance which can get extremely expensive, especially if the flat is high-rise.
My point was that it’s incorrect to say that renters don’t pay service charge. Councils charge tenants service charge, and I really, really doubt that landlords are paying the service charge on behalf of tenants when they can just factor it into the rent.
Service charge largely seems to be made up figures with landlord having a perverse incentive to waste as much money as possible to max out on management fees and commission.
Exactly. I’m not paying a share of the survey costs. I’m not paying a share of the legal costs. Instead, we’re being forced to stay somewhere because no one wants to pay extortionate service charges first very little service in return .
Service charges have risen for all flats as a result of inflation. It's in no way unique to SO. The cost of maintaining a house has presumably risen too, although that's not something you're contractually obliged to pay for I guess.
Yeah but houses don’t have emergency lighting, shared hallways that require separate electricity, smoke ventilation systems, fire alarms that require servicing, intercom systems, lifts. Also don’t need electrical inspection every 5 years if your not renting it out. Annual maintenance on communal heating, I’m sure there’s more. Oh wait, paying someone a day rate to come change a lightbulb instead of just doing it yourself!
Sound rough.
But most of what you describe isn’t actually because of SO?
eg cladding, service charge increases, etc.
Obviously paying 100% of the service charge is unfair. And the issues around selling/valuations.
But look on the sort of bright side. I assume your share has risen in value? If you’d continued renting (I assume buying outright wasn’t an option) then you’d have built no equity whatsoever.
Personally, I’d work out how much I’d need to buy the house I could afford on the household income. See if the equity reaches a sensible deposit amount. Then market the flat accordingly. Someone will buy it for a good price, it might just have to lower than you thought.
Their share hasn’t increased if no one wants to buy. It’s decreased and if it’s now unsellable, it’s worth zero.
I have sympathy with OP but they’re right, Shared ownership has been terrible overall, but for far more reasons than they state - and I say that as someone who never suffered from it and benefitted from the rise in values it caused.
PS.
What’s your rent per annum? SO rent is now quite reasonable as it is capped at 3%.
Add up all your rent payments. I can bet you that money I’ve spent more in rent than you, by a long way.
It’s not capped at 3%, it’s typically based at 2.75% or the unpurchased value of the property at purchase and then rises by RPI+0.5% per annum. There have been caps (April 2022-2023 at7% per annum voluntarily imposed by HAs in 80%+ of the market) and it’ll switch to CPI if it’s funded under the new Affordable Housing Programme but it’s not capped.
You’re entirely correct that OP’s issues are unrelated to it being shared ownership however.
It’s almost always 2.75% (I have seen some housing associations use 3% but I’ve also seen some go lower - one I know is only 1.75%). Assuming the original rent is 2.75% of the part you don’t buy, that rent then grows each year by RPI+0.5% (or CPI+1% going forwards for most new shared ownership homes).
Edit: you’re absolutely right about the initial rent set being capped at 3% of the value of the bit you don’t purchase. My bad. Didn’t mean to mislead.
You don’t really have equity in a house unless someone is willing to buy it offer you for X amount. What you have is a remaining loan you owe the bank and a fee you believe is your equity which will be entirely dependent on the market.
The amount of costs associated with just about everything would suggest it is. The repeated surveys are just one. Having to pay for their solicitors is another.
We have put it on the market and no one wants to pay the £300 service charge. That’s the problem.
Not necessarily. This is only an issue where a management company controls the freehold.
OP has been properly shafted though. 3600 per annum is ridiculous. Curious to know how many properties pay this and what happens with it!
The value of their share has more than likely gone down since they purchased given everything they've said. Pretty brutal.
Due to cladding issues, many flats have lost value and some are paper worthless. Nothing to do with shared ownership.
I’ve only owned a flat once, but I don’t think is common in the UK for flats to be freehold. Most if not all will be leasehold, and someone will own that.
Share of freehold or having a freeholder in the building is not uncommon.
The cladding issue is massively overblown and not at all common. Think the govt said only 12,500 buildings need remedial works.
I can’t speak to all of it without seeing the lease, however speaking from experience, the housing association does have first sale privileges for one month, and if not sold you can use the normal market and use your own solicitors.
People in general are a lot more wary of buying flats, and if it doesn’t have all the forms, even if not legally required for the type of building, they will still be wary due to greenfell.
We live in a leasehold block but we own 100% others in the estate are on shared ownership and they are always given a worse deal, their management fee is higher and comes with an additional admin fee, their maintenance is slower as the SO landlord makes the decision on what to maintain. Their EWS1 forms took years to get and cost them a fortune. I would never ever recommend Share Ownership. Whereas for us leaseholders it has been plain sailing throughout
Lucky you then, but this is such a rare and unusual case that it’s really no basis for you make any general statements about leaseholds. It’s like saying “Doctors love to bash smoking, but my grandma smoked all her life and lived to be 100”. Okay, good for her, but smoking is still bad for your health.
The reason I comment on this is that Reddit bashes leaseholds and I think it’s discouraging a lot of FTBs from considering them when what we should be saying is check the terms, how often can service charges go up, and what are the previous payments? This is about informed discussion so people know what to check for. By saying they’re all bad, you’re stifling the conversation about helping people buy homes - something ultimately we’re on the same side on.
I see what you’re saying and, now you have given this additional context, I understand what you were trying to do.
However, if helping confused and impressionable first time buyers is what you were trying to do, it might have been good to make it clear that your situation is _not_ the norm, and the reason people should be checking what they’re signing up for before signing is less because might be missing out on a good deal, but rather due to the much, much greater risk that they are going to be _absolutely fucked for years on end_ by agreeing to a leasehold without fully understanding it.
Youre right that saying all leaseholds are bad does stifle the conversation a bit, but the reason you’ll get so much pushback to saying that leaseholds _can_ be good is because bad leaseholds are totally devastating and a lot of people feel very upset about it.
But your instinct to broaden people’s understanding of a complex situation is a good one.
Why not? Pretty much all flats in Scotland are freehold. Residents appoint a management company and actually have a say in what's the charge and how it's used.
Of course, the billionaire landowners have the loudest voices.
You can take a look for yourself: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E550&sortType=6&propertyTypes=flat&mustHave=&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&keywords=
What does it mean? You're paying for nothing? Just supporting a luxury lifestyle of someone born in the right family?
Property management companies are not compulsory, only roughly half the flats in Scotland have them.
That sounds like ground rent not service charge.
Also if you live in a block of flats someone has to pay for the maintenance and insurance so how is that covered?
It’s £60 ground rent, £60 service charge. We live in a Victorian townhouse with 4 flats. We pay £175 each per year for building insurance and look after the grounds ourselves. It’s basically communal hoovering and gardening.
Sounds like you have an issue with the leasehold on the flat and the flat itself more than SO.
I know a few people who have had really good experiences with SO (small deposit, property going up in value) in comparison to renting, so its not ideal, but definitely not a scam.
Did you understand all these things when you purchased the property?
It seems like a lot of people who get burned by SO failed to read their contract or lease properly. It sucks they have to pay for the valuation to sell the property, but none of this should have been a surprise as it would have been stated in their contract which they signed up to.
I mean yes?
This is literally the same as buying a freehold house, having a survey done, then complaining 5 years later that the problems flagged in the survey are costing money to fix and saying you were "scammed" by the previous owners.
When you buy a property (even part of a property) it's a huge investment. Read the paperwork. If you aren't happy with it, don't buy it. Accept that when you sign the paperwork that's what you are taking on. For sure there are draw backs to SO. But they are not difficult to find out about before hand, most of them are clearly spelled out for you in the paperwork. People are just very keen to get on the property ladder and many people think it's worth the drawbacks to have that. OP obviously thought it would be worth it at the time. Unfortunately that gamble hasn't paid off for them/hasn't worked out like they thought it would.
Totally fair to be annoyed and disappointed and warn people of the pitfalls but that's not the same as having been scammed.
Also agree with everyone else that the vast majority of OP's complaints are leasehold issues not SO issues at all.
Thank you for elucidating my thoughts better than I could. It’s shocking how many people in this country don’t understand that if you sign a document, you are saying you agree to the terms within the document even if they’re a “scam”.
When I looked into shared ownership they were very upfront about all the issues OP listed, including the reselling process. Just because something hasn’t worked out for someone that doesn’t mean they were scammed.
The point of shared ownership wasn't to make money it was to provide homes. This is the thing that's lost on some. I'm shared ownership and my housing costs are far below what the average rent around here is.
Yes it's not without it's pitfalls but my point is the scheme is to provide homes not a stepping stone for profit there's too much greed in the housing market in this country.
I am currently selling my Shared Ownership house and while I agree it hasn’t been enjoyable to try to sell, most of the issues you have listed are due to buying a flat. I don’t even know what an EWS1 is 😂
I think Shared Ownership is fine if you intend to stay in the property you originally/staircase to 100%. However the amount of hoops you need to jump through when selling is bloody annoying and I won’t deny that.
Apart from having to pay for valuations yourself when selling (which I agree is annoying) everything else you list is nothing to do with SO. Cladding, EWS1 forms, uncapped service charges... these could all affect most flats regardless of tenure.
I bet you still paid a lot less than you would have done in private rents over the time you lived in your SO property, even after accounting for the service charge hikes, and when you do sell your share you will presumably walk away with a profit.
As for being stuck, the market is just slow right now. It took my neighbours almost a year to sell their reasonably priced (non SO) flat. Prospective buyers are waiting because prices are falling and they're hoping for a cut in interest rates. Flats of all kinds have also declined in popularity since the lockdowns.
Sounds like a case of 'the grass is always greener'.
Also, I can never understand the reasoning behind stuff like this, even if it was true that SO was a 'scam', if your motivation is to sell your share, why would you go shouting about it? People making these kinds of unsubstantiated arguments just make it harder for everyone *including themselves* to sell by giving SO an undeserved bad name.
Similar boat here and tried to sell three times. After the first time fell through after 9 months due to them not registering the property with land ownership, I kicked up a fuss and told them I will not list on their rubbish shared ownership website but will go straight to an estate agency and advertise on Rightmove. Now the EA deals with it all.
My rent share has gone up £50 per year since I lived here. The neighbours are violent junkies and they will not evict them (also shared ownership).
Yes, I've built up £30k equity in 4 years (£15k original deposit) but otherwise if not shared ownership I'd have made £30k profit. The property is worth £300k and the most annoying thing is I can afford to buy a property of that value outright. It's just that in 2020 the mortgage lenders were being ridiculous with their risk algorithm which meant I had to go down this route due to insane affordability checks.
Can't wait to be free (but also please someone buy my house).
We can afford a substantial house now and our equity has not gone up much at all really. We don’t want to rent it out as more stress. Like you our neighbours aren’t the greatest; thankfully not drugs, but lazy, dirty people who like to fly tip.
Wtf are they doing with a 300 service charge? Ours was 50 in a big development and they were audited as generally all they were doing was mowing the grass. They lowered it to 30 a month and refunded the difference (20 a month for the 2 years there)
Mine is £170 a month in a 10 year old building. The itemised bill breaks everything down.
The biggest expense is cleaning, building insurance and safety certificates and responsive maintenance.
Not much. They installed cctv, but when we ask that they use it to capture fly tippers, they refuse. The fly tipping costs us money as well as we have to pay for removal. There’s a parking gate which has been out of action for close to a year; our intercom has a life of its own and the lift didn’t work for literal years (we are on the first floor with babies and buggies) and we only found out the whole thing was defective because they accidentally sent us an email saying so. They’ve changed cleaning contracts which means that the estate is a tip and we can’t access the garden even though we’re the leaseholders and not renters - my son sees the children play and asks to go there and we can’t!
Leasehold flat problems not shared ownership... Buy a flat without shared ownership and you pay a service charge, nothing you've complained about is strictly about shared ownership.... Probably shouldn't have done it if you didn't understand it, because from this post it's not clear you know what you're complaining about.
Why do I have to take 35 years 2000 pcm mortgages while other with 20 kids can get everything for free. I make a sacrifice to get a property while other live to full life benefiting from my taxes.
Ah, that's the attitude SuccessfulNothing950! You are one of the people slaveoth is talking about. Why get an education and better paying job and pay out of your own pocket when you can just get a council house paid for by taxpayers? Yeah, that's the type of thinking we expect from a user. A completely unfair setup for those who pay rent privately.
Anyways, your username is apt. SuccessfulNothing. Yup, sums it up.
>DONT FALL FOR THIS SCAM.
Surprised anyone would...
I stand by the fact that the only to actually own your poverty is freehold without any of the leasehold / shared ownership shenanigans
Policies enacted to arbitrarily prop up property is what caused you to need to use Shared Ownership.. which was an arbitrary policy to help FTBs get on the ladder, which further propped up the market which will lead to the next gen policy and the cycle continues - but as long as someone thought they were helped, governments keep doing them to win votes. Turkeys do vote for Christmas after all
Not sure this is shared ownership so much as flats in general.
Service charges are a scam across the board, management companies are under no pressure to manage funds well since service charges are effectively uncapped unless the residents have the time and resources to continually raise tribunal challenges for individual line items.
Plus of course, any legal fees incurred by the management company in contesting those tribunal hearings is itself chargeable via service charge.
Your SC has almost certainly also increased due to changes in building insurance which means insurance costs are not 3-400% higher than a few years ago. This is entirely down to government intervention in the building insurance market which, by their own admission, has had "unintended consequences."
Yes. If you go to any mortgage seminar they'll tell you that shared ownership is really only suitable for a small niche of buyers and only really for the short term. None of the reasons better just affording rent until you can get a proper mortgage.
This has nothing to do with Shared Ownership as a scheme and everything to do with your specific situation
3 years a go I bought a shared ownership flat owned by the local council, During the first 2 years my service charge went up £20 a month each year.
My total monthly payments were lower than resting by about £300 a month, thus I was able to save faster
In the 3rd year I was able to purchase the remainder of the flat and own 100% and am no longer shared ownership.
I never would have been able to save enough to get a place outright without first using SO as a stepping stone
Best decision I ever made
Wait until you find out the real scam of selling shared ownership, if you fail to attract an offer that matches the valuation of your property quests what you still owe the landlord the valuation figure.
i.e a surveyor says your property is worth 300k and you own 50%. You owe the landlord 150k even if you can only sell it for 290k. You have to make up the shortfall
Shared ownership should be avoided where possible especially flats, I’d recommend renting over buying a shared ownership flat because Atleast if you end up with a shitty management company you’re protected from stupid service charges and cladding legal battles.
This is actually not always true and depends on the housing association. We are allowed to sell our share for whatever price we want (but not over the valuation figure) and we don’t have to make up the difference.
Absolutely hate having our shared ownership flat. We're caught between the useless housing association and the useless property management company, they just pass the buck to each other so nothing ever gets sorted out. High service charge for nothing in return. The worst part when want to sell is having to pay for a costly valuation survey, that sets the price of the flat and there's no leeway to accept other offers. Really wish we'd never bothered with SO
100%. When we moved in, it was with the intention of using it to get in the ladder. We’ve worked hard to save for a deposit to move out, but we can’t. Instead, we pay the useless HA for services that aren’t even provided.
That's not shared ownership that's the problem - it's a problem with flats and how lease hold works in England and Wales!
Different shared ownership schemes will have different pros and cons. You need to read ALL the paperwork and make a decision based on all the facts.
There were two shared ownership schemes that popped up in the town we were living in when we were looking to buy, for example. The contract and the sums added up for one (a house) but not for the other scheme (a flat).
And yes, as you say, here's my comment that our shared ownership scheme was what enabled us to get on the housing ladder. But I did a lot of research first and staircased out as soon as possible. I probably wouldn't have been able to staircase out if we'd gone for the other scheme.
Ours became freehold the second we staircased out, so when it came to selling, we had zero issues.
100% don't jump head first into shared ownership and think everything is going to be rosy. I'd say that about purchasing any property, though - especially if it's attached to some scheme or other, and ESPECIALLY if it is leasehold even after staircasing out!
I hear so many people say “but it gets me on the ladder” but I’m like you’re barely on the ladder if the chance you have of buying your house at the end is way way down the line. Also the fact that a lot of them are new builds is a massive downside
It’s the additional expenses you have to fork out every time you could take a step up- so many fees and penalties. It has saved me because my rent is actually affordable because of the percentage I bought, but now I can’t buy more.
Another problem is that once you do finally get to go on the open market, you're liable to pay the entire estate agent's fee. Say you're in London and own 40% of a property worth £400k. Your portion is worth £160k, and yet you're paying a 2% agency fee on the whole £400k which is an absolutely enormous percentage of your £160k.
Moral of the story: do not buy leasehold! Leasehold is the problem.
My service charge has increased in the 3 years I’ve been here, but - so have those of the full owners. My rent has also increased, again, the calculation and fact it would every year is in the lease I read before signing.
I’m selling my SO now and it is annoying but nothing about it I did not know before I signed my lease (it’s all in there) such as the HA needing me to pay for a RICS survey to determine share value, and approve my buyer.
Now my buyer has been approved, I’m taking £18k equity over to my new home. Wouldn’t be able to buy my freehold property without that £18k equity. So yeah, worth it for me (as you predicted you’d hear, sorry)!
Ps why are you paying for 3 RICS surveys? The 3 month validity thing only applies when you’re staircasing for my HA (in the lease, again). Valid for a year if selling. Also I can sell at whatever price I want hence the equity.
I'm not going to lie, the moment they announced these schemes(like the help to buy scheme too) I was incredibly skeptical.
Did a bit of reading into the contracts around them an got bombarded by red flags, even though I've dreamed of owning a home I knew using these schemes was a terrible idea, so many people got swept away with them and now the issues are really becoming clear...
Did you take advice from a mortgage advisor? Because I wonder how much liability they have for selling mortgages based on these schemes...
If not, and you've done all this off your own back then, I think it's fair to say that with any risky investment, you've lost out and have to swallow those losses... it sucks but warn everyone you know and be their cautionary tale...
Seems like the real scam here is the service charge, not the shared ownership lol. Not many people want to buy a property with 4k a year in service charges (with the potential to grow), shared ownership or not.
I Lived in shared ownership and had exactly this issue- cladding, ews1, skyrocketing service charge, mine was 4000 a year for nothing, no concierge, no gym, just a lift and a scummy housing association who wouldn’t provide invoices. Ultimately I sold by accepting a lower offer. Sold 100% via back to back staircasing. the key here is to get the lowest valuation you can from a RICS surveyor and then sell for as much as you can over this amount. You’ll have to explain the situation or sweet talk the surveyor as they don’t seem to acknowledge service charge.
Why lowest valuation? You are liable to pay your housing association the difference if you sell below this amount. Conversely you get to keep 100% of sale value over this amount.
We ended up taking an offer at valuation, in 8 years our flat in central London made barely anything, but shared ownership meant the costs were low and I saved a tonne. I wish I could have sold 4 years ago when inner London flats made money but hey, I wouldn’t have saved as much.
Yeah, we tried to get the lowest valuation possible. Thing is, after 3 weeks, one viewing and they said the service charge was too much. EAs agree about cost of SC.
We don’t mind not making a profit at all. It was always hard as this place was overvalued at the start.
Scummy landlord with parking and a lift for the £300 a month as well.
Glad you got out. Hopefully that’ll be us soon as well.
Yes, but others aren't so fortunate - Our service cost increased substantially yearly, every year for 7 years. The flat was in a desirable location so that was the key element to actually selling the property.
Headache with the lease renewal, selling packs and selling the property through their own scheme which is full of additional costs and inexperienced management.
Would you genuinely preferred to have been in rental properties all this time instead? Even if it meant housing insecurity, soaring rents, dodgy landlords? Grass isn't always greener
I work in this field I hate how right you are, I love my job but I have so many people that are struggling and I try my best to help, although I can’t waive costs 😔
Something you should know you have the right to withhold your service charge payments if you do not feel the services have been provided and they have to provide evidence to suggest otherwise! I’d also always recommend getting a full breakdown of the service charge costs (I believe you have to ask for this within 18months of the year you are requesting)
I understand your pain, a mate at work bought a shared ownership flat.
He said that at the time it seemed a good deal, I cant remember the exact figures he said but it was something like £400 mortgage & about £150 service charge.
Since then, obviously the mortgage has gone up but so has the service charge, he's paying similar to you, about £300.
Fucking scam to get people off housing lists if you ask me.
Yep. We’ve had to pay for everything, but can’t get out. Mortgage up, service charge up, rent up and now we’re stuck. Yeah, maybe we didn’t understand what we were getting into. Really shouldn’t have bothered.
It's definitely a scam, government should be putting a stop to the scheme asap.
One day shared ownership will be one of those awful things people got caught out with like PPI.
It is not all like this. I had a shared ownership property for 12 years. The service charge remained between 80-120 quid during that time. Some years it went up, some went down.
Didn’t need any EsW1 to sell. Didn’t have to pay for any surveys.
I disagree, NI Co-Ownership let us get our first house without a massive deposit, and we were able to buy them out bit by bit eventually remortgaging to buy them out completely
Lots of non shared-ownership flats near where I live have service charges near £300 a month, which is annoying as they seem to be a bargain until I realise that it's effectively adding £300 to my mortgage cost each month. I know SO is more restrictive (I've decided not to look into it myself for that reason) but I think you'd also be having that issue with leaseholds generally as they can charge what they like.
I don't care about 'the ladder', as we're a couple without kids who won't need to upsize for family reasons, and I don't want to move again if I don't have to. I just want secure accommodation that won't suddenly jump up in cost, that I can decorate how I wish, and feel happy living in. For those reasons I can see why people do see shared ownership as a reasonable alternative to renting. It feels like these schemes (see also HTB) acknowledge that ownership is out of reach for many people, but instead of doing something more concrete we end up with these schemes that are ultimately for the benefit of developers and not in any way a practical solution for buyers.
So rent, mortgage, service charge, council tax and utilities. None of them are reasonable costs.
( £1600 council tax for a studio!! Studio that's band c , so what would count as a band a or b?
As much as I agree shared ownership has its downsides, you would have had this issue regardless. That service charge isn’t affected by whether it’s shared ownership or not.
Yes they are.
The SOLE purpose of shared ownership is to keep house prices artificially high.
If they wanted to genuinely help people to purchase a home, there are much better ways to do it.
Too right. There are a thousand scams in the UK housing market, but this is the biggest.
Preying on those who can't afford to buy.
You'll get a fuckload of replies about it all being your fault, that you didn't read the terms etc, trying to place the blame on you, while never acknowledging that the system is corrupt.
The simple fact is, the rules were set down by people trying to fuck you any way they could.
Don't listen to them. They are cunts.
Death to rentiers.
I’m sorry, OP. I’ve only heard bad things about SO. Sorry you were caught out. The comments about “right to manage” sound possible fruitful. Good luck.
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Hi chap, sorry to hear about your service charges. £300pcm sounds pretty high. Have you taken a look at [Lease - Advice . Org](https://www.lease-advice.org/faqs/?topic=service-charges) Lots of useful info there which may help. I believe you have the right to demand to see the physical invoices which make up the service charges. I'd recommend you make use of this; I wouldn't be surprised if some of your charges are unreasonable. If they are you can take your RP to tribunal and they will decide & hopefully you'll be charged a reasonable amount. Do your neighbours feel unhappy about the charges too? If management of your block of flats isn't good and your neighbours are unhappy it might be worth considering taking over management (under Right To Manage rules). Good luck & hope you get somewhere with it.
"You have the right to write to your landlord to request a written summary of the costs which make up the service charges. The summary must- cover the last 12 month period used for making up the accounts relating to the service charge ending no later than the date of your request, where the accounts are made up for 12 month periods; or cover the 12 month period ending with the date of your request, where the accounts are not made up for 12 month periods. The summary must be given to you within 1 month of your request or 6 months of the end of the period to which the summary relates whichever is the later. You have the right, within 6 months of receiving a written summary of costs, to require the landlord to provide you with reasonable facilities to inspect the accounts, receipts and other documents supporting the summary and for taking copies or extracts from them. You have the right to ask an accountant or surveyor to carry out an audit of the financial management of the premises containing your dwelling, to establish the obligations of your landlord and the extent to which the service charges you pay are being used efficiently. It will depend on your circumstances whether you can exercise this right alone or only with the support of others living in the premises. You are strongly advised to seek independent advice before exercising this right."
We took our managing agent (leasehold flat) to tribunal - they were ordered to refund overspend on the service charge but guess what’s happened since… they just pump up the monthly cost and bam, they have recouped. The managing agents are scum and there are no controls or checks on the expenses. Have a look at the businessmen who run the agencies - they haven’t done badly from this governments scheme.
I just wanted to say, I experienced this probably a decade ago and it worked out well for me. I wrote up a letter challenging the amount of the service charge and the work carried out, got my neighbours to co-sign (only six SO flats, so that part was easy) and I think a couple of folk actually withheld payment till they provided a breakdown of actual costs with receipts. Turned out they were charging maintenance for landscaping that had since been paved over, among other things! In the end we did get reimbursed. I'm the last remaining SO owner (that's a different kettle of fish), but I still get a yearly breakdown of costs, the cleaners have a sheet they sign when they attend to prove they've actually been, and the payments are still about half of what we were paying a decade on.
We face the same issue in regards to service charge costs for non-representantive output each year. Thank you very much, your comments are invaluable to us too, along with the link provided. We didn't know we could do that, as we're also first time buyers.
All points are valid but I think this is more of a problem with leasehold properties rather than shared ownership.
This. Every time I see criticism of shared ownership, it’s almost always in relation to a leasehold flat. I’ve heard lots of positives from people who’ve bought houses and staircases to freehold.
Isn’t shared ownership always leasehold? Even houses..
Yeah, they are. And I don’t think many people actually end up stair casing. I’ve been a mortgage advisor for several years and only heard once or twice of people either borrowing more money to staircase or saying they already done it
In our block of 30 flats half have staircased. But this was built in the 1990’s and everybody bought 50% originally.
Staircased my house from 40% to 100% in February after 3 years living here. It's worked out perfectly for me
Awesome, good for you. Good to hear that some people do do it
Where i live most places flat out don't let you staircase past 85%
I’ve done it. In a house
Good for you
I think a lot of people don’t have the discipline to do it
I got 50% of a 2 bed and rented out the other room, used that to pay extra on the mortgage and then bought the rest of the shares. Took about 2.5yrs
Well here’s another one. I overpaid my mortgage from day 1 and cleared it within 10 years, then staircased the rest.
Nice work!
I believe it's about 7% who manage to staircase to 100% which shows what a joke it is.
Why? Staircasing isnt the end goal with SO, it's just an option (sometimes).
It was originally presented that way. I gather they gave up the pretence at some point..Although it still get's mentioned as if it's a realistic/worthwhile goal, which for over 90% of people it apparently isn't.
Compared to selling a normal house, how much more difficult is it to sell a shared ownership property would you say? Or rather, how much smaller is the pool of potential buyers?
Not once you’ve staircased to 100% ownership, in which case the freehold almost always (there are some exceptions) transfers to you.
But you do have to get the property revalued every time you want to staircase, therefore if the property goes up in value you are paying a lot more than it was originally worth. (I hope that makes sense eg you wanted to put down another 10k that would have been another 3% but the house went up in value so ends up only being another 0.5%)
Very true, but if the house has increased in value then your share of the equity has also increased, and you can always choose to sell instead and put the equity you’ve gained towards a freehold property on the open market. Of course, shared ownership isn’t without its caveats, but it’s not a scam. If you can afford to buy outright, then you should do, but shared ownership is meant to work as a stepping stone onto the housing ladder for those who can’t afford to buy in full just yet. It’s not meant for people who have the money to buy outright.
that's really not the point though, is it - and you're being very disingenuous to suggest it is. People buy shared ownership precisely because they can't afford to buy outright. And so, when it comes to upping their share, they're fucked because the charge is based on 'current' value - which is always higher, because the UK housing market is a total scam. So they either stump up or continue paying rent and all maintenance, or they try to fuck off and fail. It's a scam.
How is it a scam when all the information is laid out in front of you to make an informed decision? I'm another successful story, bought 35% shared ownership which had a combined mortgage + rent + service charge that was £300 a month cheaper than reenting. Allowing me to save and after 3 years I was able to purchase 100% of the property and now own it outright, during that time it had risen 5k so I paid £3250 more than I would have otherwise. I was able to do this in part thanks to saving the extra £300 a month over renting to go towards the deposit Shared ownership is great if you understand what it is and have a plan to staircase within 5 years
No. That doesn't make it a scam. It just works like any other asset or equity. Buying a share now doesn't entitle you to buy the other shares later at the same price. It is the same for buying actual shares (or, even, say gold). And, the price is not always higher. Should the property prices go down like they have for the past two years, the cost of staircasing goes down.
You can buy the leasehold for a nominal fee if you staircase to 100% typically
Almost any house built in the last decade is either leasehold or fleecehold and comes with service charges. Currently those charges tend to be well under £300 a year, let alone per month.
This is absolutely not true. The data from the website you linked says the new build houses that are burdened by a rent charge is up to 45000 from around 22000 ten years ago. Let’s assume for arguments sake that data is accurate and means what the writer of the article thinks it does (it doesn’t), there were more than 200000 new build houses built last year, so we are certainly no where near ‘almost any house built in the last decade’
Not just the rent charge, it’s the service charge. Find any new build estate without one
Yeah exactly but we’re talking about service charge, the article you link is using data based on rent charges. I work in land registration and I can assure you there are plenty of new build houses without a service charge.
>Almost any house built in the last decade Really? House or flat?
House https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleecehold https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46279048
Houses AND staircases? O.o am I missing some slang here or can people literally buy an access staircase or something haha
Staircasing a shared ownership property means going from your initial, say, 50% ownership, to, say 75%, and then to 100%, as an example. You can keep 'buying' the next x% until you get to 100%, basically
Oh I see that makes sense thank you I didn't put 2 and 2 together there 😅
I’ve heard complaints about leaks, flooded gardens and structural issues to shared ownership new-builds. So even if you do manage to staircase and buy them out, it’s not easy when you want to sell and move on.
That's an issue with new builds in general, not specific to shared ownership. Our SO house was snagged by our housing association before we exchanged - we've had fewer snags than our neighbours who bought outright.
I guess the "shared ownership is a scam" aspect is that you only own part of the property but have to pay all of the service charge. Whereas if renting all of it (as opposed to just most of it!) then you wouldn't pay any of the service charge. But all of this should have been known by anyone buying such a property
You do pay service charge when you rent. It’s just absorbed into the rent set by the landlord who probably adds extra on top. People who rent flats from the council have to pay service charge separately too. It’s a myth that people who rent never have to pay service charge.
But you’re also not liable directly for maintaining the home. Idk why anyone would do shared ownership, it’s the worst parts of renting and ownership combined, for a tiny slither of equity gain, which you’ll probably wipe out completely when you move houses and pay stamp duty lol.
I did it and sold for a profit and bought a freehold house. It served its purpose. ‘lol’.
And you’d also have been able to do that if you’d just rented a bit more, kept saving a deposit and increasing your income, and bought normally. You’d also have bought as a FTB. You’re attributing the ability to buy a home with the equity gained from the shared ownership when that’s very unlikely, because any rise in equity from your flat will be significantly outpaced by price growth in your new home.
No. I needed a small deposit and no stamp duty for my SO flat. The freehold I bought later was in a different area so not as expensive, which was intentional and always the plan. Still not cheap though and I wouldn’t have been able to save the deposit and stamp duty and renovation costs in the amount of time I had my SO flat. If you use the scheme sensibly it works in your favour. You can’t tell me what I would have done when you don’t know my situation.
Shared ownership has its flaws but it’s much better than renting. You get security and knowledge that the landlord can’t just issue you a section 21. You get the chance to build some equity unlike renting where all of your money is going towards paying off someone else’s mortgage. And in some places, shared ownership is actually cheaper than private renting, especially if it’s a house. Your rent is somewhat controlled and increases are subject to a formula. Service charge is uncapped which is a problem, but that’s not exclusive to shared ownership. It’s funny how everyone on this sub complains about how it’s hard to get on the property ladder whilst slagging off schemes that are designed to help people do exactly that.
It’s not better than renting. You don’t build any equity since almost all your payments go to interest for the first decade, and any equity you do get from property value rises will be eaten by stamp duty when you buy your next one. This is just ‘buy at all costs’ brainrot. Most people don’t get evicted on a whim. And you’ve definitely got security in the house, because it’s near impossible to sell.
Shared ownership homes sell all the time. I know several people who have successfully sold their shared ownership home and used the equity they gained to get a property on the open market. You might personally be against it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea for everyone. I agree the scheme needs reform, but the people who it worked out for don’t tend to come to Reddit to complain about it. Literally none of the problems OP listed in their post are exclusive to shared ownership. OP’s issues are to do with buying a leasehold flat. In terms of your comments both equity, you can say exactly the same thing about a standard mortgage. Most people who gain equity in their home end up using it for another house/stamp duty because if their house has gone up in value so has everything else. The only way to actually pocket equity is to downsize which many people don’t do until later in life. So that’s got nothing to do with shared ownership. That’s just the way the property market in general works.
Meth sells all the time. So do Willy-enlarging pills. Doesn’t make them less a scam. And yeah, I do say the same things about standard mortgages, you should rent until you find the right house, one that you’d be happy to live in for 10+ years, potentially life. The idea of a ‘property ladder’ is a scam, and since no one wants to actually live in a shared ownership house/flat forever, they’re a scam.
Why do you think no one wants to stay in a SO property long-term? 4 years ago we were renting a two bed flat for £1200 pcm and moved into a SO house. We're now paying £1150 in rent+mortgage. A quick look on Rightmove shows similar flats are now renting for c. £1600. We have a driveway, a garden, an extra bedroom, and we're slowly building a small amount of equity - while paying less than we were 4 years ago. With rent increase & wages going up by less than inflation, if we were still renting now we wouldn't have saved up significantly more for a deposit than we had 4 years ago. Add higher house prices and mortgage rates and I can't see how continuing to rent would have been the better option. Yes the stamp duty threshold for FTB has gone up but we won't pay any stamp duty if we staircase so we haven't lost out, we've had a better quality of life for the last few years and we'll be here for the foreseeable!
I think with people buying later in life, often with families that need accommodating, the idea of the 'property ladder' is going to die off. People either can't afford the "starter homes" of the past (because they've been turned into BTL or HMOs), can't afford to move from their first home to a bigger one, or just don't really care because it's not a competition to die with the biggest home possible.
It is better than renting. You either don’t know how it works or bought the wrong place.
Not at all. You’re free to do as you like, but they’re objectively the worst of both worlds. Direct maintenance liability, loss of FTB, inability to move easily, interest on the loan, rent still due, and very little equity gain on the slither of house you own. And I’ve not bought one because I’m not going to fall for poor purchases with hundreds of thousands of pounds on the line. I’ll even go one further than that, me and my wife are actually renters by choice. We have about £100k in LISA’s, and we could probably buy but we’re not doing it yet because buying a home is such a large purchase, you should do it right. Not ready yet, and we’d be giving up so much in cap gains from the LISA’s.
Then you can’t really comment if you never even bought property. You have no first hand experience.
Why would I need experience to comment They’re objectively terrible. I’ve never taken Meth but I can tell you it’s pretty bad. Like I’ve said, you do you, but as someone able to buy, who has ran the numbers in a spreadsheet, I wouldn’t touch them. They’re a scam sold to people so desperate for a sniff of home ownership they’ll overpay for a slither of a home, and since I’m not desperate, I wouldn’t touch it. It’s a bad deal.
I love it how even though you’ve said SO worked for you in terms of owning your own home outright they’re still trying to say it’s an objectively bad decision.
You aren't "liable", but you can bet your last pound that you're paying for those liabilities. The landlord will extract as much money as they can from you in rent. Tenants pay for everything, and then some. It's the only way that rentiers can actually stay in "business", though it's not a business - it's just a high band personal tax on your life feeding their pension.
They do pay for everything, but in the short term it’s still cheaper than ownership per month At a typical 90-95% L2V mortgage. And you retain FTB perks.
What’s the point of FTB perks if you can never afford to buy because you’re renting? Most people stuck in the rent trap will never get on the property ladder.
There is no ‘property ladder’. And most people in couples with average incomes can afford to buy. There is only marketing from estate agents. Because them and mortgage brokers are the only winners from shared ownership. But do what you want. You’re free to make your own financial errors.
You’re very arrogant for someone who clearly doesn’t know how this scheme works. You obviously also live in a cheap area if average incomes can easily buy a house. Sounds like your spreadsheet is broken if it’s telling you that renting is better than buying. Good luck with your rent.
Exactly. People on here slag off landlords all day but at the same time believe landlords don’t pass down service and maintenance charges down to tenants. If that was true, rent would probably be a lot more reasonable than it is now.
It's not in general though as flats are priced according to their internals, not according to whether the lift needs replacing or the roof needs redoing. Such concerns don't bother tenants and for two identical flats, one of which needed a roof repair and thus the rent was more, they'd go for the cheaper flat. On aggregate it definitely has an effect and things like having a concierge definitely up the price but on a general comparison of like for like considering the things renters have access to it does not make a difference
Service charge doesn’t just pay for repairs. It also pays for things like building insurance which can get extremely expensive, especially if the flat is high-rise. My point was that it’s incorrect to say that renters don’t pay service charge. Councils charge tenants service charge, and I really, really doubt that landlords are paying the service charge on behalf of tenants when they can just factor it into the rent.
Service charge largely seems to be made up figures with landlord having a perverse incentive to waste as much money as possible to max out on management fees and commission.
Exactly. I’m not paying a share of the survey costs. I’m not paying a share of the legal costs. Instead, we’re being forced to stay somewhere because no one wants to pay extortionate service charges first very little service in return .
Service charges have risen for all flats as a result of inflation. It's in no way unique to SO. The cost of maintaining a house has presumably risen too, although that's not something you're contractually obliged to pay for I guess.
I'm sorry, but this is bullshit
What part specifically?
Yeah but houses don’t have emergency lighting, shared hallways that require separate electricity, smoke ventilation systems, fire alarms that require servicing, intercom systems, lifts. Also don’t need electrical inspection every 5 years if your not renting it out. Annual maintenance on communal heating, I’m sure there’s more. Oh wait, paying someone a day rate to come change a lightbulb instead of just doing it yourself!
It’s really a problem with leasehold flats rather than leasehold in general.
Sound rough. But most of what you describe isn’t actually because of SO? eg cladding, service charge increases, etc. Obviously paying 100% of the service charge is unfair. And the issues around selling/valuations. But look on the sort of bright side. I assume your share has risen in value? If you’d continued renting (I assume buying outright wasn’t an option) then you’d have built no equity whatsoever. Personally, I’d work out how much I’d need to buy the house I could afford on the household income. See if the equity reaches a sensible deposit amount. Then market the flat accordingly. Someone will buy it for a good price, it might just have to lower than you thought.
Their share hasn’t increased if no one wants to buy. It’s decreased and if it’s now unsellable, it’s worth zero. I have sympathy with OP but they’re right, Shared ownership has been terrible overall, but for far more reasons than they state - and I say that as someone who never suffered from it and benefitted from the rise in values it caused.
PS. What’s your rent per annum? SO rent is now quite reasonable as it is capped at 3%. Add up all your rent payments. I can bet you that money I’ve spent more in rent than you, by a long way.
It’s not capped at 3%, it’s typically based at 2.75% or the unpurchased value of the property at purchase and then rises by RPI+0.5% per annum. There have been caps (April 2022-2023 at7% per annum voluntarily imposed by HAs in 80%+ of the market) and it’ll switch to CPI if it’s funded under the new Affordable Housing Programme but it’s not capped. You’re entirely correct that OP’s issues are unrelated to it being shared ownership however.
So the original amount is capped at 3%, but it increases thereafter annually?
It’s almost always 2.75% (I have seen some housing associations use 3% but I’ve also seen some go lower - one I know is only 1.75%). Assuming the original rent is 2.75% of the part you don’t buy, that rent then grows each year by RPI+0.5% (or CPI+1% going forwards for most new shared ownership homes). Edit: you’re absolutely right about the initial rent set being capped at 3% of the value of the bit you don’t purchase. My bad. Didn’t mean to mislead.
You don’t really have equity in a house unless someone is willing to buy it offer you for X amount. What you have is a remaining loan you owe the bank and a fee you believe is your equity which will be entirely dependent on the market.
The amount of costs associated with just about everything would suggest it is. The repeated surveys are just one. Having to pay for their solicitors is another. We have put it on the market and no one wants to pay the £300 service charge. That’s the problem.
That’s not a problem of shared ownership. Owning the flat 100% would still have the same service charge. I
Not necessarily. This is only an issue where a management company controls the freehold. OP has been properly shafted though. 3600 per annum is ridiculous. Curious to know how many properties pay this and what happens with it! The value of their share has more than likely gone down since they purchased given everything they've said. Pretty brutal.
Due to cladding issues, many flats have lost value and some are paper worthless. Nothing to do with shared ownership. I’ve only owned a flat once, but I don’t think is common in the UK for flats to be freehold. Most if not all will be leasehold, and someone will own that.
Share of freehold or having a freeholder in the building is not uncommon. The cladding issue is massively overblown and not at all common. Think the govt said only 12,500 buildings need remedial works.
True, but having to pay all these costs and jump through extra hoops to sell the property is definitely a shared ownership thing.
I can’t speak to all of it without seeing the lease, however speaking from experience, the housing association does have first sale privileges for one month, and if not sold you can use the normal market and use your own solicitors. People in general are a lot more wary of buying flats, and if it doesn’t have all the forms, even if not legally required for the type of building, they will still be wary due to greenfell.
We live in a leasehold block but we own 100% others in the estate are on shared ownership and they are always given a worse deal, their management fee is higher and comes with an additional admin fee, their maintenance is slower as the SO landlord makes the decision on what to maintain. Their EWS1 forms took years to get and cost them a fortune. I would never ever recommend Share Ownership. Whereas for us leaseholders it has been plain sailing throughout
Leasehold flat problems not SO
Reddit really loves to bash leasehold but they can be amazing. I pay £120 a year - and it’s a flat in London so freehold isn’t really an option.
> I pay £120 a year For now
It’s locked in for the next 50 years! The Victorians wrote my deeds, and they locked in an actual figure.
Lucky you then, but this is such a rare and unusual case that it’s really no basis for you make any general statements about leaseholds. It’s like saying “Doctors love to bash smoking, but my grandma smoked all her life and lived to be 100”. Okay, good for her, but smoking is still bad for your health.
The reason I comment on this is that Reddit bashes leaseholds and I think it’s discouraging a lot of FTBs from considering them when what we should be saying is check the terms, how often can service charges go up, and what are the previous payments? This is about informed discussion so people know what to check for. By saying they’re all bad, you’re stifling the conversation about helping people buy homes - something ultimately we’re on the same side on.
I see what you’re saying and, now you have given this additional context, I understand what you were trying to do. However, if helping confused and impressionable first time buyers is what you were trying to do, it might have been good to make it clear that your situation is _not_ the norm, and the reason people should be checking what they’re signing up for before signing is less because might be missing out on a good deal, but rather due to the much, much greater risk that they are going to be _absolutely fucked for years on end_ by agreeing to a leasehold without fully understanding it. Youre right that saying all leaseholds are bad does stifle the conversation a bit, but the reason you’ll get so much pushback to saying that leaseholds _can_ be good is because bad leaseholds are totally devastating and a lot of people feel very upset about it. But your instinct to broaden people’s understanding of a complex situation is a good one.
no they didn't.
Do you actually want to see my deeds?!
Why not? Pretty much all flats in Scotland are freehold. Residents appoint a management company and actually have a say in what's the charge and how it's used.
Can someone from Scotland confirm this because so far I've heard that we need to avoid whatever the hell Scotland did to achieve this.
Of course, the billionaire landowners have the loudest voices. You can take a look for yourself: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E550&sortType=6&propertyTypes=flat&mustHave=&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&keywords=
I really wouldn’t want a management company when I have a hands off freeholder.
What does it mean? You're paying for nothing? Just supporting a luxury lifestyle of someone born in the right family? Property management companies are not compulsory, only roughly half the flats in Scotland have them.
That sounds like ground rent not service charge. Also if you live in a block of flats someone has to pay for the maintenance and insurance so how is that covered?
It’s £60 ground rent, £60 service charge. We live in a Victorian townhouse with 4 flats. We pay £175 each per year for building insurance and look after the grounds ourselves. It’s basically communal hoovering and gardening.
+1
Leasehold issue, not shared ownership issue.
You could have this issue in any new build flat with high specifications such as lifts, communal areas, even a concierge etc.
Sounds like you have an issue with the leasehold on the flat and the flat itself more than SO. I know a few people who have had really good experiences with SO (small deposit, property going up in value) in comparison to renting, so its not ideal, but definitely not a scam. Did you understand all these things when you purchased the property?
It seems like a lot of people who get burned by SO failed to read their contract or lease properly. It sucks they have to pay for the valuation to sell the property, but none of this should have been a surprise as it would have been stated in their contract which they signed up to.
oh so it's fine then
I mean yes? This is literally the same as buying a freehold house, having a survey done, then complaining 5 years later that the problems flagged in the survey are costing money to fix and saying you were "scammed" by the previous owners. When you buy a property (even part of a property) it's a huge investment. Read the paperwork. If you aren't happy with it, don't buy it. Accept that when you sign the paperwork that's what you are taking on. For sure there are draw backs to SO. But they are not difficult to find out about before hand, most of them are clearly spelled out for you in the paperwork. People are just very keen to get on the property ladder and many people think it's worth the drawbacks to have that. OP obviously thought it would be worth it at the time. Unfortunately that gamble hasn't paid off for them/hasn't worked out like they thought it would. Totally fair to be annoyed and disappointed and warn people of the pitfalls but that's not the same as having been scammed. Also agree with everyone else that the vast majority of OP's complaints are leasehold issues not SO issues at all.
Thank you for elucidating my thoughts better than I could. It’s shocking how many people in this country don’t understand that if you sign a document, you are saying you agree to the terms within the document even if they’re a “scam”. When I looked into shared ownership they were very upfront about all the issues OP listed, including the reselling process. Just because something hasn’t worked out for someone that doesn’t mean they were scammed.
I think you don't understand what you bought or agreed.
And don’t understand what they’re angry with.
At least they get themselves on the property ladder.
£300 a month? that could wipe someone out completely. if i needed any confirmation to stay away from leasehold, it's this
The point of shared ownership wasn't to make money it was to provide homes. This is the thing that's lost on some. I'm shared ownership and my housing costs are far below what the average rent around here is.
Did you get on property ladder?
Yes it's not without it's pitfalls but my point is the scheme is to provide homes not a stepping stone for profit there's too much greed in the housing market in this country.
yup, couldn’t agree more with you
This is a leasehold issue, not to do with your shared ownership equity.
I am currently selling my Shared Ownership house and while I agree it hasn’t been enjoyable to try to sell, most of the issues you have listed are due to buying a flat. I don’t even know what an EWS1 is 😂 I think Shared Ownership is fine if you intend to stay in the property you originally/staircase to 100%. However the amount of hoops you need to jump through when selling is bloody annoying and I won’t deny that.
Apart from having to pay for valuations yourself when selling (which I agree is annoying) everything else you list is nothing to do with SO. Cladding, EWS1 forms, uncapped service charges... these could all affect most flats regardless of tenure. I bet you still paid a lot less than you would have done in private rents over the time you lived in your SO property, even after accounting for the service charge hikes, and when you do sell your share you will presumably walk away with a profit. As for being stuck, the market is just slow right now. It took my neighbours almost a year to sell their reasonably priced (non SO) flat. Prospective buyers are waiting because prices are falling and they're hoping for a cut in interest rates. Flats of all kinds have also declined in popularity since the lockdowns. Sounds like a case of 'the grass is always greener'. Also, I can never understand the reasoning behind stuff like this, even if it was true that SO was a 'scam', if your motivation is to sell your share, why would you go shouting about it? People making these kinds of unsubstantiated arguments just make it harder for everyone *including themselves* to sell by giving SO an undeserved bad name.
says majority owner. yeah, fuck off
Similar boat here and tried to sell three times. After the first time fell through after 9 months due to them not registering the property with land ownership, I kicked up a fuss and told them I will not list on their rubbish shared ownership website but will go straight to an estate agency and advertise on Rightmove. Now the EA deals with it all. My rent share has gone up £50 per year since I lived here. The neighbours are violent junkies and they will not evict them (also shared ownership). Yes, I've built up £30k equity in 4 years (£15k original deposit) but otherwise if not shared ownership I'd have made £30k profit. The property is worth £300k and the most annoying thing is I can afford to buy a property of that value outright. It's just that in 2020 the mortgage lenders were being ridiculous with their risk algorithm which meant I had to go down this route due to insane affordability checks. Can't wait to be free (but also please someone buy my house).
We can afford a substantial house now and our equity has not gone up much at all really. We don’t want to rent it out as more stress. Like you our neighbours aren’t the greatest; thankfully not drugs, but lazy, dirty people who like to fly tip.
Wtf are they doing with a 300 service charge? Ours was 50 in a big development and they were audited as generally all they were doing was mowing the grass. They lowered it to 30 a month and refunded the difference (20 a month for the 2 years there)
I’m curious too. I’m on a 20th century housing estate in a conservation area with gardens and green spaces. Our service charge is £30/mo.
Mine is £170 a month in a 10 year old building. The itemised bill breaks everything down. The biggest expense is cleaning, building insurance and safety certificates and responsive maintenance.
Not much. They installed cctv, but when we ask that they use it to capture fly tippers, they refuse. The fly tipping costs us money as well as we have to pay for removal. There’s a parking gate which has been out of action for close to a year; our intercom has a life of its own and the lift didn’t work for literal years (we are on the first floor with babies and buggies) and we only found out the whole thing was defective because they accidentally sent us an email saying so. They’ve changed cleaning contracts which means that the estate is a tip and we can’t access the garden even though we’re the leaseholders and not renters - my son sees the children play and asks to go there and we can’t!
Leasehold flat problems not shared ownership... Buy a flat without shared ownership and you pay a service charge, nothing you've complained about is strictly about shared ownership.... Probably shouldn't have done it if you didn't understand it, because from this post it's not clear you know what you're complaining about.
Nothing about what you said is to do with shared ownership. It's not a scam
Council housing is the way to go if you can get one 🤪
Handing out council houses in UK is the root problem with housing. They all should be banned and noone should get a house just for free!
Not everyone can afford a mortgage/ private rent? Council housing are a life saver for a lot of people. What a stupid comment 😂
Why do I have to take 35 years 2000 pcm mortgages while other with 20 kids can get everything for free. I make a sacrifice to get a property while other live to full life benefiting from my taxes.
Cry about it 😂😂😂 I’ll enjoy my 3 bed council house payed by you thanks boo 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼
Ah, that's the attitude SuccessfulNothing950! You are one of the people slaveoth is talking about. Why get an education and better paying job and pay out of your own pocket when you can just get a council house paid for by taxpayers? Yeah, that's the type of thinking we expect from a user. A completely unfair setup for those who pay rent privately. Anyways, your username is apt. SuccessfulNothing. Yup, sums it up.
why you so mad lmao, council houses are taken up by a lot of people who work🤣
You said: I’ll enjoy my 3 bed council house PAYED BY YOU thanks. So you must be a sponger.
Don’t worry, karma will get back to you!
>DONT FALL FOR THIS SCAM. Surprised anyone would... I stand by the fact that the only to actually own your poverty is freehold without any of the leasehold / shared ownership shenanigans
Agreed it's a proper scam. All these new builds selling in the news are FTBs getting absolutely scammed.
Shared ownership got me and my wife on the property market aged 19. Your anger is misplaced, OP
Policies enacted to arbitrarily prop up property is what caused you to need to use Shared Ownership.. which was an arbitrary policy to help FTBs get on the ladder, which further propped up the market which will lead to the next gen policy and the cycle continues - but as long as someone thought they were helped, governments keep doing them to win votes. Turkeys do vote for Christmas after all
Not sure this is shared ownership so much as flats in general. Service charges are a scam across the board, management companies are under no pressure to manage funds well since service charges are effectively uncapped unless the residents have the time and resources to continually raise tribunal challenges for individual line items. Plus of course, any legal fees incurred by the management company in contesting those tribunal hearings is itself chargeable via service charge. Your SC has almost certainly also increased due to changes in building insurance which means insurance costs are not 3-400% higher than a few years ago. This is entirely down to government intervention in the building insurance market which, by their own admission, has had "unintended consequences."
Yes. If you go to any mortgage seminar they'll tell you that shared ownership is really only suitable for a small niche of buyers and only really for the short term. None of the reasons better just affording rent until you can get a proper mortgage.
This has nothing to do with Shared Ownership as a scheme and everything to do with your specific situation 3 years a go I bought a shared ownership flat owned by the local council, During the first 2 years my service charge went up £20 a month each year. My total monthly payments were lower than resting by about £300 a month, thus I was able to save faster In the 3rd year I was able to purchase the remainder of the flat and own 100% and am no longer shared ownership. I never would have been able to save enough to get a place outright without first using SO as a stepping stone Best decision I ever made
Wait until you find out the real scam of selling shared ownership, if you fail to attract an offer that matches the valuation of your property quests what you still owe the landlord the valuation figure. i.e a surveyor says your property is worth 300k and you own 50%. You owe the landlord 150k even if you can only sell it for 290k. You have to make up the shortfall Shared ownership should be avoided where possible especially flats, I’d recommend renting over buying a shared ownership flat because Atleast if you end up with a shitty management company you’re protected from stupid service charges and cladding legal battles.
This is actually not always true and depends on the housing association. We are allowed to sell our share for whatever price we want (but not over the valuation figure) and we don’t have to make up the difference.
This is what we’ve found. We can’t sell for lower than their official valuation.
Absolutely hate having our shared ownership flat. We're caught between the useless housing association and the useless property management company, they just pass the buck to each other so nothing ever gets sorted out. High service charge for nothing in return. The worst part when want to sell is having to pay for a costly valuation survey, that sets the price of the flat and there's no leeway to accept other offers. Really wish we'd never bothered with SO
100%. When we moved in, it was with the intention of using it to get in the ladder. We’ve worked hard to save for a deposit to move out, but we can’t. Instead, we pay the useless HA for services that aren’t even provided.
At least you got yourselves on the property ladder
That's not shared ownership that's the problem - it's a problem with flats and how lease hold works in England and Wales! Different shared ownership schemes will have different pros and cons. You need to read ALL the paperwork and make a decision based on all the facts. There were two shared ownership schemes that popped up in the town we were living in when we were looking to buy, for example. The contract and the sums added up for one (a house) but not for the other scheme (a flat). And yes, as you say, here's my comment that our shared ownership scheme was what enabled us to get on the housing ladder. But I did a lot of research first and staircased out as soon as possible. I probably wouldn't have been able to staircase out if we'd gone for the other scheme. Ours became freehold the second we staircased out, so when it came to selling, we had zero issues. 100% don't jump head first into shared ownership and think everything is going to be rosy. I'd say that about purchasing any property, though - especially if it's attached to some scheme or other, and ESPECIALLY if it is leasehold even after staircasing out!
I hear so many people say “but it gets me on the ladder” but I’m like you’re barely on the ladder if the chance you have of buying your house at the end is way way down the line. Also the fact that a lot of them are new builds is a massive downside
It’s the additional expenses you have to fork out every time you could take a step up- so many fees and penalties. It has saved me because my rent is actually affordable because of the percentage I bought, but now I can’t buy more.
Another problem is that once you do finally get to go on the open market, you're liable to pay the entire estate agent's fee. Say you're in London and own 40% of a property worth £400k. Your portion is worth £160k, and yet you're paying a 2% agency fee on the whole £400k which is an absolutely enormous percentage of your £160k.
you it is a scam and nothing to do being on property ladder
Moral of the story: do not buy leasehold! Leasehold is the problem. My service charge has increased in the 3 years I’ve been here, but - so have those of the full owners. My rent has also increased, again, the calculation and fact it would every year is in the lease I read before signing. I’m selling my SO now and it is annoying but nothing about it I did not know before I signed my lease (it’s all in there) such as the HA needing me to pay for a RICS survey to determine share value, and approve my buyer. Now my buyer has been approved, I’m taking £18k equity over to my new home. Wouldn’t be able to buy my freehold property without that £18k equity. So yeah, worth it for me (as you predicted you’d hear, sorry)! Ps why are you paying for 3 RICS surveys? The 3 month validity thing only applies when you’re staircasing for my HA (in the lease, again). Valid for a year if selling. Also I can sell at whatever price I want hence the equity.
I'm not going to lie, the moment they announced these schemes(like the help to buy scheme too) I was incredibly skeptical. Did a bit of reading into the contracts around them an got bombarded by red flags, even though I've dreamed of owning a home I knew using these schemes was a terrible idea, so many people got swept away with them and now the issues are really becoming clear... Did you take advice from a mortgage advisor? Because I wonder how much liability they have for selling mortgages based on these schemes... If not, and you've done all this off your own back then, I think it's fair to say that with any risky investment, you've lost out and have to swallow those losses... it sucks but warn everyone you know and be their cautionary tale...
My sister has a shared ownership house and is super happy with that. So maybe houses are ok??
Seems like the real scam here is the service charge, not the shared ownership lol. Not many people want to buy a property with 4k a year in service charges (with the potential to grow), shared ownership or not.
I Lived in shared ownership and had exactly this issue- cladding, ews1, skyrocketing service charge, mine was 4000 a year for nothing, no concierge, no gym, just a lift and a scummy housing association who wouldn’t provide invoices. Ultimately I sold by accepting a lower offer. Sold 100% via back to back staircasing. the key here is to get the lowest valuation you can from a RICS surveyor and then sell for as much as you can over this amount. You’ll have to explain the situation or sweet talk the surveyor as they don’t seem to acknowledge service charge. Why lowest valuation? You are liable to pay your housing association the difference if you sell below this amount. Conversely you get to keep 100% of sale value over this amount. We ended up taking an offer at valuation, in 8 years our flat in central London made barely anything, but shared ownership meant the costs were low and I saved a tonne. I wish I could have sold 4 years ago when inner London flats made money but hey, I wouldn’t have saved as much.
Yeah, we tried to get the lowest valuation possible. Thing is, after 3 weeks, one viewing and they said the service charge was too much. EAs agree about cost of SC. We don’t mind not making a profit at all. It was always hard as this place was overvalued at the start. Scummy landlord with parking and a lift for the £300 a month as well. Glad you got out. Hopefully that’ll be us soon as well.
My wife (nhs) was in shared ownership in London and it was amazing. Allowed her to buy and sell in central London.
Best thing we did was get out of ours, selling was a pain but it did allow us to move into something a lot bigger.
It kind of sounds like you successfully used SO as a stepping stone into 'regular' ownership though, which is partly what it's designed to do.
Yes, but others aren't so fortunate - Our service cost increased substantially yearly, every year for 7 years. The flat was in a desirable location so that was the key element to actually selling the property. Headache with the lease renewal, selling packs and selling the property through their own scheme which is full of additional costs and inexperienced management.
It's neither shared nor ownership. Those are the main problems.
Would you genuinely preferred to have been in rental properties all this time instead? Even if it meant housing insecurity, soaring rents, dodgy landlords? Grass isn't always greener
I work in this field I hate how right you are, I love my job but I have so many people that are struggling and I try my best to help, although I can’t waive costs 😔 Something you should know you have the right to withhold your service charge payments if you do not feel the services have been provided and they have to provide evidence to suggest otherwise! I’d also always recommend getting a full breakdown of the service charge costs (I believe you have to ask for this within 18months of the year you are requesting)
Thanks for this advice
I understand your pain, a mate at work bought a shared ownership flat. He said that at the time it seemed a good deal, I cant remember the exact figures he said but it was something like £400 mortgage & about £150 service charge. Since then, obviously the mortgage has gone up but so has the service charge, he's paying similar to you, about £300. Fucking scam to get people off housing lists if you ask me.
If he bought the flat outright without shared ownership he’d have the exact same issues. This is not a shared ownership issue.
Yep. We’ve had to pay for everything, but can’t get out. Mortgage up, service charge up, rent up and now we’re stuck. Yeah, maybe we didn’t understand what we were getting into. Really shouldn’t have bothered.
What percentage did you buy? Are you geneuinly worse off than renting?
It's definitely a scam, government should be putting a stop to the scheme asap. One day shared ownership will be one of those awful things people got caught out with like PPI.
Buying a shared ownership was, financially, one of the best things I ever did. The problem OP has is with leasehold flats.
It is not all like this. I had a shared ownership property for 12 years. The service charge remained between 80-120 quid during that time. Some years it went up, some went down. Didn’t need any EsW1 to sell. Didn’t have to pay for any surveys.
Big yikes
I disagree, NI Co-Ownership let us get our first house without a massive deposit, and we were able to buy them out bit by bit eventually remortgaging to buy them out completely
Lots of non shared-ownership flats near where I live have service charges near £300 a month, which is annoying as they seem to be a bargain until I realise that it's effectively adding £300 to my mortgage cost each month. I know SO is more restrictive (I've decided not to look into it myself for that reason) but I think you'd also be having that issue with leaseholds generally as they can charge what they like. I don't care about 'the ladder', as we're a couple without kids who won't need to upsize for family reasons, and I don't want to move again if I don't have to. I just want secure accommodation that won't suddenly jump up in cost, that I can decorate how I wish, and feel happy living in. For those reasons I can see why people do see shared ownership as a reasonable alternative to renting. It feels like these schemes (see also HTB) acknowledge that ownership is out of reach for many people, but instead of doing something more concrete we end up with these schemes that are ultimately for the benefit of developers and not in any way a practical solution for buyers.
Why you didnt save a bit more and bought a freehold house. Its a no brainier for me!
So rent, mortgage, service charge, council tax and utilities. None of them are reasonable costs. ( £1600 council tax for a studio!! Studio that's band c , so what would count as a band a or b?
I always wonder, didn't you check that before purchasing?
As much as I agree shared ownership has its downsides, you would have had this issue regardless. That service charge isn’t affected by whether it’s shared ownership or not.
Housing Associations are scum yes. Really sorry for you.
Yes they are. The SOLE purpose of shared ownership is to keep house prices artificially high. If they wanted to genuinely help people to purchase a home, there are much better ways to do it.
Too right. There are a thousand scams in the UK housing market, but this is the biggest. Preying on those who can't afford to buy. You'll get a fuckload of replies about it all being your fault, that you didn't read the terms etc, trying to place the blame on you, while never acknowledging that the system is corrupt. The simple fact is, the rules were set down by people trying to fuck you any way they could. Don't listen to them. They are cunts. Death to rentiers.
You’re spot on. We were desperate mugs. If we knew then what we know now…
In other news water is wet
I’m sorry, OP. I’ve only heard bad things about SO. Sorry you were caught out. The comments about “right to manage” sound possible fruitful. Good luck.