The shared ownership buying process
Buying your first home may feel daunting but we are here to help and support you. We have put together this basic guide to buying a home to help you have some basic information about the process, but don’t worry our sales team will be there to help support and guide you through the process and we can provide you with Mortgage Advisors and Solicitors who offer fixed fee services and are experienced professionals in the shared ownership market to advise and guide you.
1. Register with us – Complete our shared ownership application form. It includes questions about your household income and savings, financial commitments, and your current living arrangements. It will take about 30minutes to complete.
2. Eligibility check – Get financially assessed by our nominated Mortgage Advisor and check you meet the eligibility to buy under the shared ownership scheme. They will check your income, savings and financial commitments and will discuss items they will need after you have viewed our property. They will be able to advise you on the maximum full market value and share of a property your financial situation would cover.
3. View our property – Book a virtual or physical viewing of our show home when appointments are available, where our sales team will be able to explain what we are selling and answer any queries and questions you may have. If you like what you see you can complete a reservation form for the property you would like to buy.
4. Attend a full financial assessment Interview – Attend an interview with our nominated Mortgage Advisor to assess in detail your ability to afford and sustain a mortgage. They will need to see documentation to support your previous meeting and to meet certain legal requirements of buying a home. Being specialists in shared ownership, they will be able to source your mortgage if you wish that meets with your needs and achieves a mortgage for the exchange of contracts deadline.
5. Allocation – Based on the Mortgage Advisor’s assessment and your application we will allocate each home based on allocation priority. Shared ownership is not based on a first-come, first-served basis, in some instances, more than one person on the viewing day will reserve the same property. If this happens, we will allocate according to the eligibility criteria for the development.
6. Confirm the offer – We will inform you of the property allocated to you. If you wish to proceed, you must accept this offer within 5 days of our confirmation, pay us a £500 reservation fee and provide us with your solicitor’s details (At the viewing, we will have provided you with a list of solicitors who specialise in shared ownership).
7. Instruct a mortgage advisor and solicitor – Buying your first home, needs professionals who have detailed knowledge of shared ownership. They are used to making the buying process simple and easy to understand for you, removing all the jargon to guide you along the way. You’ve only 28 days to exchange contracts, time goes quickly, so no time to waste and you need experienced professionals there by your side.
8. Issue the legal paperwork – We will send the Memorandum of Sale – the instruction to all solicitors as soon as you confirm acceptance of our offer. This is the start of the legal process. Generally, our solicitors will send the legal paperwork to your solicitor within a few days of our instruction and then your solicitor must review and collate all the information, including obtaining a copy of your mortgage offer. They will go through the legal paperwork with you, so you know about your home.
9. Exchange contracts – Once your solicitor has received everything they need and have gone through the legal paperwork with you they will exchange contracts. This must be within 28 days of the start of the legal process. This confirms everything is in place to complete your purchase when your home is ready.
10. Completion – If your home has been built when you reserved, you will be able to move in within 7 days of exchange of contracts. If you are buying off plan, you may have to wait until your home is completed and signed off as ready for occupancy. Once this happens, we will advise your solicitor who will arrange for completion to take place within 10days. On the day of completion, your solicitor will transfer the money to buy your home to our solicitors.
11. Move in – As soon as our solicitors receive the money from your solicitor, our sales team will contact you to arrange to meet you at your home to collect the keys. This can be between 11am – 5pm depending on when the funds are received, so it’s best not to arrange removal firms to move in that day as we can’t let you have access to your home until completion has been finalised.
12. Congratulations! – You now own your own home!