Shared Ownership was first introduced in the early 1980's. The aim of this scheme is to assist individuals who are in housing need but have insufficent means to purchase a property outright.
In broad terms the expression "shared ownership" encompasses schemes whereby a Registered Social Landlord grants a lease of a percentage of the equity of a property and rents the remainder to the tenant. Those qualifying for shared ownership schemes were generally existing Registered Social Landlords and local authority tenants.
In 2006 however the Registered Social Landlord using funding fprovided by the Housing Association opened up the market and started to offer different shared equity schemes. These schemes were different from the Shared Ownership schemes as follows:-
The Homebuy Scheme is mainly aimed at newbuild properties, and is only avaliable to finance NewBuild properties.
The Openmarket Scheme is avaliable for properties offered on the open market.
The keyworker scheme is only avaliable to people like police officers and nurses, and is different from the other schemes, as it contains certian provisions in the Lease, relating to "claw back" which applies in the event that the leaseholder ceases to be a Key Worker.
In April 2008, two new schemes where announced by the government.
These schemes are aimed at first time buyers, key workers, Households that have an income of less that £60,000.00, Tenants of Registered Landlord and Local Authority Tenants. The schemes are known as "Ownhome" and MyChoiceHomeBuy"
The OwnHome scheme is operated between a development and property and instead of buying part and renting part of the home, the property is brought on the open market and is funded by a mortgage from the Co-Opeative Bank and an equity sharing loan from Places for People.
My ChoiceHomeBuy is operated by a consortium of the registered Social Landlord. The loan is for a maximum of 50% of the value of the property. The remaining percentage can be borrowed from any lender, which differs from the OwnHome scheme which restricts the inital lender to the Co-Operative bank.
