You can buy a home through shared ownership if:

• Your household income is £80,000 a year or less
• You cannot afford all of the deposit and mortgage payments for a home that meets your needs

Please note for some schemes, you may need a local connection to Winchester and/or the village.

The homes are newly built in partnership with Winchester City Council.

You purchase a share in your new home, usually with a mortgage, and pay affordable rent back to Winchester City Council for the share you don’t own. The starting share can be anything from 25% - 75%.

Over time, you can buy more shares in your home until you own it outright.

To apply for a property at one of our schemes, you will need to register your interest. This can be done a couple of ways:

• You can visit the schemes website (a list of our current schemes can be found here). On the website you will find an option to register your interest in the scheme.
• You can email sales@winchester.gov.uk. Providing your name, contact details and the scheme(s) you are interested in.

When a plot becomes available, we will be in contact and advise on the next steps.

As a shared owner with Winchester City Council, you are allowed to purchase further shares in your home at any time, usually in 10% increments until you own 100% of your property outright. This is called ‘staircasing’. As your ownership increases, your rent payments to us reduce in turn.

How it works

 

Step 1 – Contact the Sales Team and let us know that you wish to staircase

Step 2 – Arrange for a valuation. This must be carried out by a RICS (Royal Institute of Charted Surveyros) qualified surveyor.

Step 3 – Speak to an independent financial advisor (IFA) to discuss your options

Step 4 – Appoint a solicitor

For more information, please see the shared owners guide to owning more, on the right of the page. You can also contact the sales team. 

The first step is to have your property valued by a RICS chartered surveyor and both parties need to agree on this figure. An estate agent’s valuation is not sufficient to satisfy the lease as normally these are market appraisals and are not carried out by a RICS chartered surveyor.

The process once we have the valuation is as follows:

• If you are selling, you must clear any rent and service charge arrears before or on completion
• If you decide to sell your property, you must confirm your intention in writing using the attached Notice of Intention form.
• An EPC is required. (We have an EPC from when you bought so no need to get a replacement of this)

After three months any valuation is no longer valid. If you decide to continue, a new valuation will be necessary and you will have to pay a further valuation fee. 

The nomination period of 8 weeks starts when we receive your Notice of Intention. In the nomination period we send information about your home to the applicable Home Buy Agent for your area and obtain a nomination list from them of potential purchasers. Potential purchasers will be assessed by an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA) to ensure the property is affordable for them and that they will be able to obtain a mortgage. If Winchester City Council find a buyer for your home, you may have to pay a nomination fee to us of 1% of the share price. Please check your lease for details.

1.     Where Winchester City Council is unable to find a buyer for your home within the nomination period, you will then be free to find your own purchaser on the open market possibly through an estate agent. Winchester City Council will require potential purchasers to have registered with the Home Buy Agent for the area.

2.     Once a buyer has been found and approved by the IFA, Winchester City Council will instruct their solicitors to liaise with your solicitor directly with regards to completing the sale of the property. It is important that you have a legal representative, as the documentation involved is complex. It will also help if the chosen Solicitor/Conveyancer has had experience of shared ownership in the past.

3.     You are responsible for paying rent and service charges until you leave your home. If you need to claim any money back, you should speak with your solicitor who will claim from your buyer.

Please note, as per your lease, you will be required to pay our solicitor’s fees associated with supplying and drawing up the legal documents required. There are also administrative charges associated with obtaining replies to enquiries.

You may wish to consider taking independent advice from your own Solicitors or Conveyancer at this stage so that they are forewarned that a transaction may be forthcoming and they will also be able to answer any queries you have about your Lease.