This month, we’ve been focusing on one of the biggest questions shared owners can face: what happens when you want to sell your home?
Read on for a roundup of the latest news on shared ownership and our activities in June.
What happens if you can’t sell a shared ownership property?
People frequently report issues selling these types of properties. Some find it takes longer than expected to sell their share or have issues with high service charges. Others struggle because of lease restrictions, problems with valuations, a lack of interested buyers, or buyers failing affordability checks. Some people report being trapped with no way forward.
Buyback is where a landlord buys back a shared owner’s share. We think buyback should be more widely available as part of the shared ownership scheme, particularly where shared owners are facing serious problems selling.
Consequently, we’re running a series of round tables with housing professionals to inform a new Shared Ownership Resources report about buyback.
The first round table took place on 9 June, with 83 attendees making for a lively discussion. If you missed it, you can catch up via the Social Housing Round Table channel on YouTube: Overcoming Challenges for Exiting Shared Ownership.
Want to know more about buyback? Take a look at our Q&A on buyback policies with legal experts at Womble Bond Dickinson.
Developing our SO Hub
In May we launched SO Hub: shared owner satisfaction, listing shared owner ‘tenant satisfaction measures’ by the landlord. Tenant satisfaction measures, or TSMs, are intended to help residents understand how well landlords are performing. But many shared owners don’t know that this information exists, or where to find it.
That’s why we created the SO Hub: to bring together useful information in one place, and make it easier for shared owners to compare landlords.
In June we expanded the Hub by adding information on landlords’ buyback policies. We hope this will help shared owners understand whether their landlord has a published buyback policy and, if so, what it says.
Shared ownership pros and cons
No one understands shared ownership better than shared owners! Consequently, we asked people who’ve written My SO Home shared ownership reviews to let us know how they’d improve the scheme.
We received a range of thoughtful suggestions. Some focused on better information before purchase. Others highlighted the need for fairer costs, greater transparency, better routes out of the scheme and stronger protections for shared owners when things go wrong.
You can find their suggestions for tackling problems with shared ownership in our new resource, SO Hub: Improving shared ownership.
Shared ownership works for some people. But it doesn’t work for everyone. And if policy-makers, landlords and lenders want to improve the scheme, they need to listen carefully to the people who know first-hand what it’s like to live with shared ownership over the long term.
New shared ownership guide
When it comes to shared ownership, people sometimes say they didn’t realise what they were getting into…. So we’re creating a new shared ownership guide. Many thanks to everyone who completed our survey to help us understand what we need to include.
We’ll keep you updated on our progress.
Leasehold Advisory Service: update
The Leasehold Advisory Service, known as LEASE, is a government-funded service offering advice to leaseholders. LEASE recently updated their shared ownership consumer advice on becoming a shared owner, being a shared owner and leaving shared ownership.
Clear, accurate advice is important. Shared ownership can be complicated, and people need to understand not only the initial affordability of buying a share, but also the longer-term costs, responsibilities and risks.
Inheriting an Older Persons Shared Ownership ‘Extra Care’ home
In the latest in our series of My SO Home shared ownership case studies, Gillian Perceval explains her experience of selling her mother’s retirement home.
We’re hearing from a number of people who’ve faced similar problems after inheriting an Older Persons Shared Ownership, or OPSO, Extra Care retirement home.
For relatives, the situation can be particularly difficult. They may be dealing with bereavement, ongoing costs, uncertainty about selling and a scheme they didn’t personally choose to enter into.
So, in our Q&A with experts at legal firm Womble Bond Dickinson, their team answer questions from relatives who’ve inherited an OPSO Extra Care retirement home.
The Social Housing Bill
On 16 June 2026, the government published details of a new Social Housing Bill.
Why is this relevant to shared owners? During a House of Lords debate on the Bill the next day, Lord Jamieson and Baroness O’Neill of Bexley proposed several amendments to the Bill, including a strategy to expand the shared ownership scheme.
We welcome serious scrutiny of shared ownership. But expansion of the scheme should not come before a full understanding of existing problems. Shared owners need fair treatment, clear rights and practical solutions when things go wrong.
Find out more in our feature: Social Housing Bill: what do shared owners need to know?
Making our website more accessible
We’re currently working with AbilityNet on an accessibility review of our website.
We know we’ve got a way to go. But accessibility matters. Information about shared ownership should be easy to find, easy to understand and available to everyone who needs it.
We’ll keep you posted on our progress. If you’ve got any comments, or you’d like to give us feedback about anything we could do better, please get in touch.
In other news
During June we were quoted in an i Paper shared ownership case study: I regret buying a shared ownership home – we can only own 80%.
Also in June, the HomeOwners Alliance published a feature by Shared Ownership Resources founder, Sue Phillips, on the Renters’ Rights Act 2025: how it affects shared owners.
Stay up to date on shared ownership
In short, June has been a month of practical work on some of the issues that matter most to shared owners: selling, buyback, landlord transparency, inherited shared ownership homes and access to clear information.
We’ll continue to develop the SO Hub, gather evidence from shared owners and housing professionals, and campaign for fairer treatment within the shared ownership scheme.
To keep up to date, click HERE to join our mailing list for updates, journo requests and/or fundraising appeals.
Featured image: Shutterstock
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