Selling your home

If you are a shared owner and you want to sell your equity you must allow us to nominate a buyer as specified in your lease. We will attempt to arrange a buyer within eight weeks. The local authority can also nominate a buyer within this time.

If we (or the local authority) nominate a buyer we will manage the resale process. If we can’t find a buyer you can sell your equity on the open market and manage the process yourself.

If you own 100% of the property, you can sell on the open market through an estate agent without our permission. Some leases stipulate that we have first refusal on a sale. In this case your solicitor must contact us to see if we wish to purchase the property. This is at our discretion.

See our step-by-step guide to reselling your home.

Selling as a shared owner

We will send you a sale valuation instruction letter and our guide to selling your shared ownership home within three days of contacting us. When you are ready to proceed, complete and return the resale valuation instruction form with a cheque for the valuation fee.

Valuations

Once we have received this, we will arrange for an accredited valuer to assess the market value of your equity within two working days of your fee clearing. Valuations are valid for three months, you will need to pay for a new valuation if the sale takes longer than this. We will send you a copy of the valuation within two working days of receiving it.

The sale price is calculated on the valuation of your home and on the percentage that you own. So, The Valuation x The Percentage Owned = The Sale Price. For example, if your home is valued at £200,000 and you own 50% of the property, then the sale price would be: £200,000 x 50% = £100,000. You can’t sell your property for more than the sale price given, although you can sell your property for less. Accepting a lower offer means you’ll receive less for your share.

If you don’t agree with the valuation you can dispute it. Collect local estate agent information on at least three sales of similar properties sold in the area in the last three months for us to consider. Once received, we can ask the valuer to reconsider their valuation. If this happens, we will write to you with the outcome. If you still don’t agree, you can ask for a final decision from the district valuer. You need to pay for this. We will not continue with the sale if you are unhappy with the district valuer’s valuation.

Improvements

If you have made improvements to your home and the surveyor believes that these have had a positive effect on your home’s value, you will sell your home and improvements separately in order to receive the financial benefit. There is more information on how this is calculated in our guide to selling your shared ownership home.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)

By law, you will need to arrange for a domestic energy assessor to provide an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) before we can advertise your property. You do not need to have received your EPC before we can advertise your property, but we will need proof that you have arranged the EPC. This proof could be a receipt, email or letter from the EPC provider. Please send us this proof with your valuation instruction form.

An EPC is valid for 10 years. Some properties were allocated a certificate when they were constructed. Please check to see if you already have one. You should be able to find an EPC provider on the internet or in Yellow Pages, or the valuer visiting you may be able to recommend one.

Instructions to sell

If you agree to sell your equity you are responsible for paying for your own legal costs and mortgage fees. You also need to pay our selling fee (2% of value of sold equity, plus VAT), administrative fees and the cost of any valuations.

Once we have received your instructions along with the EPC, we will start marketing your property. We will advertise online, contact potential applicants and send out direct mailings to our database of applicants. Anyone interested in your home will call you to arrange a viewing. If they want to buy, they will need to contact us.

Once a buyer has been found for your property, both you and your buyer will provide us with your solicitor’s details and we will instruct the solicitors to proceed with the legal paperwork. Please note that it usually takes about 6-12 weeks for a sale to proceed to legal completion.

If we haven’t nominated a buyer within eight weeks, you’re free to approach an estate agent to sell your share on the open market. It is possible to sell 100% of your home via the estate agent. This means your buyer will pay the full price of your property and, simultaneously, you’ll pay Octavia Housing for the remainder of the shares.


Finding your own buyer

If we agree that you can find your own buyer for your equity (for example if we choose not to exercise our right to find a buyer or we are unable to find a one), we still need to agree to the buyer’s mortgage terms. We will agree if:

  • you have no arrears, or you clear them before the sale is finalised
  • we have a copy of a valid mortgage offer which confirms the amount matches the valuation
  • the buyer meets our criteria. We will check their credit rating. We will not go ahead with the sale if we are not satisfied with their credit rating or that they will be able to afford to keep up their payments
  • the property is not sublet.

If you own 100%

If you have staircased to 100% or have bought a property outright and then sell, we do not need to approve the buyer’s mortgage. We do however, ask to see their mortgage offer. For more details please see our guide to.

Completion

When the sale is complete, the incoming buyer takes on the rights and responsibilities of the shared ownership lease.

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