My SO Home: No. 33

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Former shared owner, Peter*, discusses his 12-year experience of shared ownership.

I’d been renting a room in London for around 7 years. I dreamed of owning my own place but it didn’t feel like that would be possible.

Where I was living, in South London, I saw some new-build flats being advertised as ‘affordable housing’ and started to investigate. That was how I learnt all about shared ownership and started to wonder whether I might actually be able to make it work. The scheme was targeted at people who lived and worked in the borough, which I did. So I decided to apply and see what happens.

“Shared ownership worked out quite well for us. But there was a lot of stress along the way, and I’m not sure it’s something I would recommend.”

Why shared ownership?

My motivation was that – on a salary (in 2013) of around £35,000 – the idea of buying a property, especially as a single person, was not realistic. But I knew I didn’t want to rent a room forever. I recall going on dates and occasionally thinking about how much the person earnt and whether we’d be able to buy a flat together – more than whether I really liked them or not! Which was, and is, really unlike me.

When my application was accepted, I felt like I’d won a prize

Clarion Housing was the landlord. I didn’t really do any research into them at the time. To be honest, I was so excited at my application being accepted that I felt like I’d won a prize or something. It was a new build – what could go wrong? Especially with the new build guarantee for 12 months, I thought it was a safe bet.

To minimise my risk as much as possible though, and also to keep my monthly mortgage payments low, I bought a 25% share. It was around £75,000 at the time (property valued at £300,000). Though things didn’t get off to a good start, as the build was delayed by around 8 months.

I had to ‘sofa surf’ for a long time. That was stressful and frustrating.

My experience over the first few years

The first few years went really well. It was a block of 15, and everyone was super excited to move in. We set up a residents association, had some communal dinners, a WhatsApp group etc. and everyone was getting on well.

There were some ‘snagging issues’: for example, a water pipe burst above my bathroom and water flooded through the ceiling. But Clarion was pretty good at sorting things out relatively fast. My service charge + rent for the 75% I didn’t own at this time was about £600-£700 in total.

Soon after moving in my new GF moved in too and, as she was paying me ‘rent’, it meant things were pretty affordable. I was also able to walk to work saving on commuting costs.

Our service charges were ok-ish, but repairs and maintenance were ‘botched’

Service charges gradually increased year on year. I see some in the press that are horrendous. Ours was far from ideal but always seemed to be ok-ish. I think it started at around £600 a year, and was around £1,4000 a year by the time we eventually sold, around 10 years later.

My main gripe was that it never felt like we were getting any value for money. The things that they actually did were never to a good standard.

Everything was ‘botched’ and needed re-doing a few years later rather than doing good jobs in the first place.

Cladding issues

Around 2019 my friend in our block decided to sell, but found they could not due to the apartment block failing the EWS1 assessment for cladding. There are wooden balconies and some other wooden cladding in a few places.

I could write a whole series of articles about this, but suffice to say it was the most stressful period of my life. We were totally at the whim of the freeholder and unable to progress anything towards remediation. We wrote to MPs, local Councillors and the press. Eventually in 2024 our building was awarded a ‘pass’ and I sold as soon as I could. We would have sold 5 years earlier if we could have done, and we’d probably have got a better price than we did.

Subletting

Between 2018 and 2022 there was a lot of anti-social behaviour (ASB) happening in the block next to ours: smoking, crime, drinking, dogs off leads in the courtyard, people having late night parties etc. I had my bicycle stolen twice in 6 months, and a gay couple next to us had to put up with regular abuse.

I looked into subletting as, along with the cladding issues, I was desperate to get out of the flat. But the bank wanted to add something like 1% to our mortgage costs. This, along with the tax that I’d have to pay on the income, made it financially unviable. Clarion Housing also wanted their ‘cut’ of something like £500 to give me permission to do it.

Finally selling

In 2024 we finally managed to sell the flat for £575,000. We made a profit of around £300,000 in the 12 years. We feel incredibly lucky to have ‘got out’ without being out of pocket. Although we also feel incredibly sorry for the people who have ended up in negative equity, trapped, or having to sell at a loss just to get out of the situations they have felt trapped in.

In the end, shared ownership worked out quite well for us. But there was a lot of stress along the way and I’m not sure it’s something I would recommend.

*Name has been changed

Featured image: Freepik

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