Shared Ownership or part buy, part rent allows people to purchase a share of a property. It used to range between 25% and 75% before the lower end decreased to 10% back in September 2021. After this the tenants pay a subsidised rent on the remaining share. They have the ability to buy further shares of 5% or more (depending on the contract) in the future which is known as ‘staircasing’. [1], [2] Interestingly, most who use this scheme tend to not purchase more shares as seen by roughly only 4300 households that staircased to 100% equity in 2021. This is < 50% of the initial purchases of a home, resulting in staircasing to account for 2.3% of shared ownership properties run by the housing associations. These low numbers may be due to the cost of additional shares being too expensive or they may wish to move to another property due to better rates. [3]
According to the study by Cowan et al. (2017), different people have “claimed” shared ownership as their own idea but it was fully introduced in the 1980s via the Housing Act 19804 with the first purchase in Birmingham on the 16th September 1975. [5] Currently, the scheme is not widespread with only approximately 202,000 shared ownership homes in England before the end of December 2021. This number is < 1% of all households in England but has increased in recent years. [6]
So there is a short overview on the history of shared ownership. If you are looking to buying an affordable home why not take a look at shared ownership houses.
References
[2] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8828/
[3] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8828/CBP-8828.pdf
[6] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8828/
