How does staircasing work?
If you’d like to own more of your home – or even buy it outright – we can guide you through the process of buying more shares in your property, and help you decide if it’s right for you. There are 5 main steps:
- Check your finances
- Complete an application
- Arrange a valuation
- Obtain authority to proceed
- Conveyancing and completion
You can read more detail about these steps here
What are the benefits of staircasing?
Owning a bigger part of your Shared Ownership home – or even owning all of it – comes with many benefits:
- You’ll reduce the amount of rent you pay to us as you only pay rent on the share you don't own
- If you decide to sell your home the more shares you own will lead to more profit if the value of your home has increased
- If you own 100% of your home, in most cases you can sell it on the open market using an estate agent of your choice, and you’ll benefit from any profit made
- Becoming the outright owner means you can maximise the profit from any major home improvements you carry out if you choose to sell
Find out more
- Keen to find out how much it might cost? Try our handy online staircasing calculator
- Ready to apply? Complete our online application form
- Have questions? Contact the team: staircasing@sovereign.org.uk or 0300 330 0718
FAQs
As a guide, we suggest that the transaction to buy more shares in your home should complete within 3 months.
You and your solicitor should work towards this time frame, and by providing all the relevant information required you can help the process run smoothly.
We are committed to creating affordable homes for our customers – and so it’s important that you carefully consider all the costs involved in buying more shares in your home before you decide to apply.
Each time you purchase additional shares, you’ll have expenses to pay such as legal fees, mortgage fees, and our administration charge for handling your application. We recommend that you seek advice from your mortgage lender or an independent financial adviser. More information on staircasing fees can be found here.
Buying more shares in your home has a number of benefits:
- Buying more shares in your home means you reduce the amount of rent you pay to Sovereign
- When you decide to sell your home, the greater percentage you own, the more profit you will make if the value of your home has increased
- If you own 100% of your property, in most cases you can sell your property on the open market using an estate agent of your choice
- If you buy the remaining shares in your home and own 100% of your property, in most cases you can sell your home to anyone interested in buying it and are not restricted to those applying for affordable homes -this will need to be confirmed by us
Once you’ve submitted your application to buy more shares in your home, we’ll contact you to confirm we have all the information we need. If there’s anything missing from your application, we’ll be in touch to ask you for further details.
We’ll process the information you have provided, we’ll check your rent and service charge account, and check your lease.
If you’ve carried out any home improvements, we’ll ask you to provide details, including written evidence of Sovereign’s consent. We’ll let you know within 15 working days whether you are eligible to proceed with your application. If so, we’ll then ask you to pay our administration fee of £180 (including VAT) which covers the cost to process your application.
It’s best that you don’t start your part of the process until we’ve let you know that our checks are complete, as we don’t want you to incur any unnecessary fees.
Yes, it’s important that all property transactions are handled professionally by a solicitor. If you need help finding a solicitor to act on your behalf, please let us know. Once you’ve instructed a solicitor to work with you, you’ll need to give us their details.
We’ll also instruct solicitors to act on our behalf, who will pass on all relevant information to your solicitors as soon as we receive your completed Authority to Proceed form.
Your solicitor and ours will then work together to agree a completion date – usually within three months of your application. You should keep in close contact with your solicitor for regular updates – it’s best that you work with them, rather than contacting us directly.
We are dedicated to making this process as easy as possible for you – and in most cases, there are no restrictions on buying more shares in your home. However, a small number of leases have staircasing restrictions in place which means you’ll only be able to staircase up to 80% in your home. We’ll check this for you when you submit your application, or you can check your lease before you apply.