In most cases, you can start buying more shares as soon as you have completed on your shared ownership home.

If you have recently completed your initial first tranche purchase or interim Staircased, your registration might still be pending at the Land Registry. If that is the case, we would suggest you speak to your solicitor before deciding to move forward.

This will be set by your lease. In most cases, you will need to purchase at least a 10% share in each Staircasing transaction.

Other leases contain no minimum restriction at all. If you have purchased a lease know as a ‘New Model Shared Ownership Lease’, your options are different - you can find out more about this here. Please get in touch with us so we can review your lease and let you know what you can purchase. 

You can get a general idea of value from property portals, such as Rightmove or Zoopla, but you will need a formal valuation to proceed with the purchase. You can view our panel of surveyors here.

To tell us which surveyor you are using and if you have made any improvements to your home, please complete our webform.

The formal valuation will tell us the current market value of your home and if the improvements you have told us about will affect your value. 

Good news! You do not need to Staircase to 100% in one go.

Most shared ownership leases will allow you to buy smaller shares so that you can build up to 100% over time, this is known as interim Staircasing.

Some leases may restrict you to owning an 80% maximum share. Your lease will advise of the minimum purchase you can make so get in touch so we can let you know what your lease says.

In most cases where you own a house, you will be able to acquire the freehold when you Staircase to 100%. If your home is in a designated protected area or has alternative council-imposed restrictions, you might not be able to acquire the freehold and be limited to an 80% purchase.

If you live in a flat, maisonette or coach house, you can most commonly Staircase to become a 100% leaseholder however, the freehold cannot be acquired.

Get in touch and we can let you know if you can acquire the freehold for your property.   

You can Staircase using a mortgage or cash. For example, from savings or an inheritance.

You may be able to also use a cash gift (from friends or family), but this would have to come with no agreement to repay the gift. We would recommend speaking to an independent financial advisor to support with understanding what purchase is best for you.

Your financial advisor will be able to confirm this, but in most cases you will be able to use the equity you have in your share as the deposit. The equity is the difference between the current value of your share and the amount outstanding on your mortgage.

It is wise to have some cash set aside separately for the other costs involved.

Each time you Staircase, your rent will reduce in line with the share amount you own. 

You can use our handy calculator to help determine the way buying additional shares will reduce your overall rent payments.

If LiveWest retains any shares in the property, you will continue to pay rent to us.

In most cases, if buy 100% the rent will no longer be payable. You may still have a service charge and buildings insurance to pay.  You should be aware of your charges, but we will also let you know during the process.

If your lease restricts you to owning a maximum 80% share, you will continue to pay rent on the share that LiveWest retains.

Your lease will not change unless you Staircase to 100% and acquire the freehold. If you Staircase to 80% on a restricted property, the lease remains in place.

If you Staircase to 100% on a leasehold property (for example a flat) the lease remains in place but certain conditions will cease to apply. In all cases, you will receive a memorandum of Staircasing to certify the additional shares you have purchased. 

The following charges will be incurred when buying more shares (anything more than 1%):

•    Administration fee - £300 (plus VAT) unless we are running a time limited incentive.
•    Surveyor valuation fee – around £300 (plus VAT).
•    Solicitor fees- LiveWest will be responsible for our own solicitor fees, and you will be responsible for yours.
•    Stamp Duty – you will need to speak to your solicitor to check if this is applicable to you.

If you have the option in your lease and you intend to buy just 1%, your fees will be less. Please contact us for more information. 

You may have to pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) when you buy a property through a shared ownership scheme run by an approved public body, such as LiveWest. The government website says you can choose to either:

-    Make a one-off payment based on the market value of the property (‘market value election’).
-    Pay SDLT in stages.

Your solicitor can give you further advice about stamp duty.

You can also review the government website.
 

In all cases where you currently pay a service charge, you will continue to do so after you have bought more shares.  

If there is an external management company, you may start to pay them directly following completion. We will help you to arrange that, if applicable.

LiveWest are legally an independent party to you, so it is important that you get legal advice on the purchase of your home, as you will become responsible for all matters attached to it.  

This can include, but it is not limited to, maintaining the building and land, the drainage, the supply of services and other legal responsibilities regarding the neighbourhood you live in.  

A solicitor will be best placed to make sure that you are aware of these responsibilities before you commit to them.

The solicitor will also ensure that you comply with legislation such as HMRC.

It depends on what you intend to do.

If you are interim Staircasing (buying more shares but not 100%), we will need to complete an assessment given to us by Homes England to ensure that you jointly qualify for the shared ownership scheme. If you do not, we will not be able to agree.

If you are 100% Staircasing, there is no need for us to qualify you both for the shared ownership scheme, as you will no longer be a shared owner.

In both cases, your solicitor will likely need to deal with the transfer of the title into joint names, before they can complete the Staircasing.  

This will add some extra time to the process and may mean that you have to have your valuation extended or pay for a new valuation to be completed, if the chartered surveyor is not happy to extend the original.

We would recommend that you deal with removing an ex-partner before your Staircase. 

You can do this by speaking to our Home Ownership team on 0300 123 8080 or by emailing homeowner@livewest.co.uk.  

This will require the cooperation of your ex-partner and may take some time to resolve with your lender and because there will be two solicitors involved – yours and your ex-partners.

RICS or the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, is a professional body. Chartered surveyors who are a member of the RICS are therefore held to global standards of practice and must be indemnified for the advice that they give. They use a formal method of valuation, taking into consideration market comparables of recently sold (completed) properties in your area. They will make adjustments for the home, and will provide a full report to you on their findings.

An Estate Agent’s Appraisal is a guide price. Homes England require that shared ownership properties are valued by chartered surveyors who are a member of the RICS. LiveWest follow the principles of the Homes England capital funding guide on all of its shared ownership homes.

LiveWest will always review valuation advice and check that it seems in-line with the market, before we confirm the price of the additional shares.

If you do not think that the valuation is accurate, you will need to supply to us, examples of three or more homes in your area that have sold (completed) in the last three months to support your view. We will then ask the chartered surveyor to review these and give us their feedback.  

If you still disagree when the chartered surveyor has given their feedback, you are entitled to pay for a further valuation report by an alternative chartered surveyor. You should be aware that it would be unlikely two chartered surveyors to arrive at largely different valuations as they will be considering the same evidence.

In unlikely event that there is a large discrepancy, we would ask the valuers to speak to each other and arrive at a mutual valuation. If they are unable to do so, it will be referred to the district valuer for arbitration.
 

The formal valuation will tell us the current market value of your home and if the improvements you have told us about will affect your value. If the surveyor feels the improvements have added value to your home, you will pay the market value less the value added by your improvements (proportionate to the share you are purchasing).

In some cases, work that you have done to the property, will not be considered as an improvement, such as things that have been replaced or repaired. The chartered surveyor will determine this.