My Experience Of Putting My Shared Ownership Flat Up For Sale- Part 1
As some of you may know I live in a shared ownership property and have been there for just over six years now. Ever since I met Luke we’d openly spoken about living/ getting a place together and when he moved in together at the start of the year we knew we’d be looking for our own place eventually. We plan to move back in with my parents in order to save more for 6-12 months. And also make our buying plan much easier. This just left me with putting my shared ownership flat up for sale. I had planned to wait until the start of 2019 to start the process but I thought why wait when I know the process might be pretty long.
The first step in putting my shared ownership flat up for sale
With shared ownership not only is it you and the buyer but you have a third party involved which is the housing association who owns a slight majority of your property. The first part of my process was to call the housing association and be sent the pack about selling which explained the process and what to do next. This was pretty simple and I got the pack through quickly and step one was to sort out a valuation. When you sell a shared ownership property the housing association will put up the property for sale at whatever it is valued at. There’s no room to accept higher or lower than this which is why it’s so important.
I did a whole post on my experience of my valuation which you can read here. I knew in advance what other flats in the building have sold for which are the same as mine. And thankfully my valuation came in the same which was really good. The time between contacting the housing association and having the valuation completed was 1 week and then getting the valuation through was a further 1 week. Not for the next step in putting my shared ownership flat up for sale.
After my valuation
The next step after getting the valuation documents was to forward this over to the housing association along with some signed paperwork. This included information such as how far it is from public transport, any modifications that have been done to the property, etc which may affect how it is described. Then I had to take images of the property myself which I’m going, to be honest, was pretty tricky to do. I don’t know how these types of images should look. I’d assumed they’d send someone round to do this.
I tackled each room separately. Moving a few bits out to make it look less cluttered. And I took multiple images of each room from different angles to properly show the size and shape. When you have a triangular-shaped kitchen/ living/ dining space can be tricky. I did the best I could and sent this all over the housing association. It was 3 days later by the time I had sorted all the images and paperwork. So now we’re 2 weeks and 3 days in.
Putting my shared ownership flat up for sale: Property description
As someone who works in Content and has a career writing, I had hoped that I could do the description. But the housing association source this out themselves so I had to wait a week for someone to send over the initial description for me to sign off and say I was happy with. I ended up only taking 5 days to send over which I was happy about, the quicker the better. The description itself was pretty basic but it was absolutely fine for my property. I signed it off a few hours after it was sent and I was told that it would take a few days to get onto the system. I’d then be sent a link when it was live on the site.
By the point of signing off the description, I was 3 weeks and 1 day in. But by 3 weeks and 5 days, it was live on the Shared Ownership Network sites.
From going live online
To ensure that no time is wasted anyone who is interested needs to pass eligibility checks. This is done with the housing association before my contact number is passed on. Considering this I had my first call about it just 2 hours of it going live. A viewing was organized to take place a few days later. The viewing was booked for a Sunday evening and the couple was so lovely. They commented on how hard it is to come by shared ownership properties. They loved the flat so much that I got an email from the housing association the next day to say they wanted to get the property. Just one working day after it went up! This whole process was 4 weeks from my initial conversation.
I initially wrote this all out as one blog post but it as 2,000+ words. No one wants to sit through that so that’s the end of part 1. If you want to know what happens in the second part of my shared ownership sale head here.
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27 responses to “My Experience Of Putting My Shared Ownership Flat Up For Sale- Part 1”
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All About Me
Rhian Westbury
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My friend bought a shared ownership flat last year. She was so excited to be on the property ladder finally. She won’t be selling yet but this may be useful for her so I’ll make sure she has a read too x
I don’t have much knowledge on the topic so it’s always interesting to hear about people’s experiences 🙂
I’m curious to read the second part!
Glad things started moving quickly! I’m a first time buyer currently going through the whole viewing/offering etc process so its interesting to read the sellers perspective! Hope all goes smoothly.
This is so useful to anyone doing the same! We have never had a shared ownership property. Good luck with it all!
I don’t believe we have this type of shared ownership in Canada. It’s interesting to learn how it works!
I am not familiar with this process, but it sounds like it could be confusing. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and easily for you!
Wow! That’s super speedy! I would have been happy to keep reading tbh! We’ll be buying our first house soon so I’m super intrigued.
This is really useful for those going through this process as it’s a minefield. Good luck
This is such a great post, I used to work for a Building society and dealt with mortgages and also worked for a housing trust so know all about shared ownership, but that was quite a few years ago now.
I didn’t know that you could do that. Of course it isn’t a smooth process but everyone can do it.
I never had this shared ownership flat, an I had never still now sold any of my flats so I do not have any idea. But I loved reading it.
I wish you good luck and everything goes smoothly and easy for you! I don’t have any personal experience in this but really interesting to learn this works.
The idea is clever but anything connected to ownership and real estates is so complicated. I gotta read the rest of the story, can’t wait.
We have never had shared ownership properties, but I can only imagine the stress of it all xx
I wasn’t aware you cou;dn’t accept other offers on shared ownership places, that seems kindof awful. I went through the help to buy scheme and I’m worried about what it will be like if we decide to sell without paying off that loan!
This is so helpful, for those who’s not aware of the process yet should read this blog. Thanks for sharing your knowledge
As someone who is thinking about buying within the next few years. this is really helpful. Although I don’t necessarily plan to go into shared notice, it’s so nice hearing about your experience from a personal and more direct point of view without complicated jargon and such! I bet it’s all so exciting for you too, making these changes for your future x
Ah congratulations! I’m so pleased its all moving so quickly for you. I’ve often wondered what happens when you want to sell a shared ownership so this is really interesting. I’m currently in the middle of buying my house from my local council … it’s definitely not all going as straightforward as yours haha!
I always wondered how this would work. I hope it all works out well for you.
I don`t know too much about the topic but you made me curious. I am trying to read your experience of the valuation but there is no link 😀
I am not planning on selling my home but these tips are great. I thought it would be more complex than that honestly.
That is definitely an interesting concept for ownership. But owning in any way is a great thing!
I have never heard of something like this, but maybe it’s not an “American” thing to do, although it sounds similar to time shares. It seems like it was quite the detailed process to go through, though. Best wishes to you and Luke going forward!
I have heard of this concept before but had literally no clue about it! So interesting to read. Looking forward to reading part 2!
Thanks for sharing your experience! Would you mind me asking a personal question? Did you get any profit from selling your share to use on other purchases? We are looking to do Shared Ownership then eventually sell our share and move to America!
I did make money from selling as the price of the property went up by about £100,000 due to when I bought it and development in the local area around the flat. So I made £45,000 of the money it made as I owned 45%. But obviously, in this local climate, it really depends on if the property price will go up. I got mine when it was first built which helped and I knew my area was going to have work done on it which would increase the price x