Buying a home of your own might seem like a daunting task, but actually, it's relatively straightforward. 

The very first step

Before you start thinking about buying a Shared Ownership Home, you need to establish whether you'll qualify. If you meet all of the following criteria, it's likely you will qualify:

 

	You have a learning disability
	You're currently receiving Income Support or Housing Benefit
	You have little or no income other than State Benefits
	You receive care and support paid by your Local Authority
	You don't have a poor credit rating

If you can say 'yes' to all of the above, then you can apply for a Shared Ownership Home.

Your Care Manager

If you fulfil all the criteria above, you must contact your Care Manager to ask for an assessment of your needs. 

When you book the appointment, it would be very helpful to direct your Care Manager to this website. Not only will they be able to appreciate what you're hoping to achieve, but on our Professional Adviser's Site, they can read some useful information to help them with your assessment.

It's normally a good idea to take someone with you to the meeting, perhaps a close friend or family member. 

At the meeting, your Care Manager needs to understand your wish to consider buying a Shared Ownership Home. They'll assess your present position and conclude whether a home of your own would be more suitable accommodation in comparison to where you live now. They'll decide whether you'll understand the process on your own, and if not, they'll recommend you have help from a person you trust. Your assessment will also confirm that you'll receive the right level of care and support in your new home. 

All being well, you'll be given a positive recommendation to proceed but if your Care Manager feels a home of your own would not be suitable for you, they'll confirm their reasons. It may be possible to appeal against this decision and in this case, please come back to us so we can advise you what to do next.

Someone to help you

Buying a Shared Ownership Home is a complicated transaction, even though we make it incredibly smooth and simple a process. If your Care Manager believes you require additional help to understand the process and what's involved, we'll need you to appoint someone you trust to oversee the process from now on. This will usually be a member of your family or a close friend. They may already be helping you with things like State Benefit claims.

The person you choose needs to be a trustworthy person who has your best interests at heart and as this is a large financial transaction, they need to be creditworthy too. If they have a poor credit rating, you won't be able to buy a Shared Ownership Home.

Do I Qualify?

Once we receive your assessment from your Care Manager confirming you'll benefit from a Shared Ownership Home, we need to establish if you'll qualify for State Benefits to cover your regular housing costs. At this point, we need to know about you so we'll send you a short form to complete. We'll let you know if your Care Manager believes you need help from someone you trust and if you do, this person will be required to help you complete the form.

So you can see what questions you'll be asked, you can click on this link to see the form.

Do I Qualify for a Shared Ownership Home?

On receipt of your form, we'll contact your local office of the Department of Work and Pensions to check you're eligible to receive Income Support. The Department of Work and Pensions will pay, direct to your Lender, sufficient money to cover your mortgage interest payments. 

We'll contact your Local Authority to check you're entitled to receive Housing Benefit. The Local Authority will pay, direct to the Housing Association, Housing Benefit to cover the rent on the Housing Association's half of the property.

We'll also contact the person you've nominated to help you with the process and let them know exactly what they need to do to help you buy a Shared Ownership Home.

Neither you nor the person you've chosen to help you will be charged for this service. In fact, neither of you will be required to make any payment to us, or any company we introduce you to, at any time. Details of how the costs are covered are found on the About Us page.

'Decision In Principle' 

Once we've received positive confirmation that you'll qualify for State Benefits, which is likely to take about two weeks, we'll send you a 'Decision In Principle' Certificate indicating you've qualified to look for a Shared Ownership Home up to £200,000.

Your mortgage will always be £100,000.  And that's because Income Support for mortgage interest is available up to a maximum mortgage of £100,000. 

You must bear in mind this is an 'in-principle' decision. At a later stage, you'll complete a detailed application form for the mortgage, which might reveal something that prohibits you from taking out a mortgage - for example, a very poor credit history. So whilst the Certificate is an excellent indication you'll end up with a Shared Ownership Home, it is by no means a guarantee that you will.

Choosing your home

Now the fun starts. We'll send you details of a specific property or a list of properties in your chosen area you're eligible to buy. Once you've decided where you'd like to live, you'll contact us to arrange the viewings.

Once you've viewed the properties, you need to let us know which one you'd like to buy.

Applying for the Mortgage

Once you've chosen the property you'd like to buy, we'll send you the mortgage application form and the application forms for Income Support for Mortgage Interest and Housing Benefit. They all need to be completed in full, signed by you and returned to us so we can check they've been properly completed.

If you intend to use your own solicitor, you will provide us with their contact details at this point. Otherwise, we will nominate a solicitor from our panel. If you use our nominated solicitor, you won't be required to pay any legal costs whatsoever. 

To comply with the stringent Money Laundering requirements, you'll be required to provide certain documents to prove who you are and where you live. If you're having help from someone you trust, they, too, will need to provide similar documents.

When we're satisfied all the paperwork is complete, we'll send the whole pack to the Lender. It's a requirement that each of you is creditworthy and a credit check will be run. Unfortunately, if either of you has a poor credit record, you will not qualify for the mortgage and you won't be able to buy a Shared Ownership Home under this scheme. Providing there's nothing untoward with your credit history, the Lender will complete the Benefits forms and send them to your Local Authority and your local Department of Work and Pensions. It will then instruct a surveyor to value the property.

Mortgage Offer

Once the Lender has received the valuation report, providing the value matches the price you're being asked to pay for the property, you'll be sent a Mortgage Offer direct from the Lender. This is formal legal confirmation you have been allocated the money to buy your Shared Ownership Home.  You're likely to receive your Mortgage Offer within three weeks of returning the forms to us.

Now you've received the promise of the money, we'll let the Care Provider know you're getting near to the time when the Shared Ownership Home will be yours. They will make contact with you to confirm your exact support requirements.

The Legal Work

Your chosen solicitor will receive a copy of the Mortgage Offer. The Housing Association will be contacted and the full legal process will begin. 

You'll be consulted at every stage and shortly before the property becomes yours, you or the person you've appointed to help you with the purchase will be asked to sign some legal papers to confirm the purchase can be completed and to agree the moving in date.

About a week before the moving in date, we'll contact the Care Provider to let them know when you'll move in, so they can be on hand to help you if required.

Within about four weeks, the legal work will be complete and you will be presented with the keys to your Shared Ownership Home.

After you've moved in

We want to be absolutely certain everything is as it should be. We'll be in touch with the Lender, the Housing Association, the Care Provider, the Department of Work and Pensions and your Local Authority to ensure everything has been set up properly and they're all doing what they're required to do.

And most importantly, we'll be in touch with you to check you're happy in your new home.

All that's left for you to do is sit back and enjoy your very own Shared Ownership Home!

Now what can be better than that?

The Risks

There are three risks associated with owning a Shared Ownership Home.  But we've negotiated a unique scheme that removes the first two of them.

 

	Risk 1: When you leave a Shared Ownership Home and it's sold, if the property value has fallen, you could end up owing the lender more than you receive from sale of the property.  It's a term called 'negative equity'.  But for our scheme, the Housing Association guarantees to ensure you'll never face this problem.  It'll repay your mortgage in full when you leave the property.
	Risk 2: Normally, when you buy a Shared Ownership Home, you're responsible for the repairs and maintenance of the property.  But for our scheme, the Housing Association will cover these costs.  If something goes wrong with the property, you'll simply phone the Housing Association and it'll send someone round to repair the damage.  It couldn't be easier.

With a normal Shared Ownership purchase, when the property is sold, if the value has risen, you could make a profit once the mortgage is repaid and the costs of the sale have been taken into account.  Our research has indicated 'making a profit' is a low priority for people with a learning disability.  By far the most important reasons learning disabled people desire a Shared Ownership Home is the choice of where to live and the long term security it provides.  

You'll have the right to live in the property for as long as you like.  When you decide to leave the property permanently, it'll pass to the Housing Association.  The Housing Association will immediately repay your mortgage.  If the property value has fallen, you won't be liable for the 'negative equity'.  If the property value has risen, the Housing Association will keep any profit to offset the repairs and maintenance costs and to provide money for further properties for others.

So this leaves just one risk.

 

Risk 3: The scheme is entirely dependent on State Benefits covering both the mortgage interest payable to the Lender and the rent payable to the Housing Association.  If State Benefits should stop, then you'll be liable to make the payments yourself.  If you cannot make the payments, you'll have to leave the property.

You should be aware State Benefits have always been available for people with learning disabilities and it's widely viewed they will continue into the future. We therefore believe this risk to be so small, it can be ignored.