Right to Shared Ownership

Deposit required: The size of your deposit will be determined by your mortgage provider’s terms and conditions, but it will typically range from 5% to 25% of the value of your share.
Ownership: A leasehold interest worth between 10%-75% of your home’s market value.
Headline benefits: Enables people to get on the housing ladder with a smaller mortgage and deposit.
Headline requirements: You must meet all of the Right to Shared Ownership’s eligibility criteria. Your home must also be eligible. To find out if your home is eligible, please contact your landlord.

Availability: England only

Overview

If you are a tenant of a home for Social Rent or Affordable Rent, the Right to Shared Ownership offers you the chance to buy an initial share in your current home worth between 10% and 75% of its market value on Shared Ownership terms. You will pay rent to your landlord on the rest.

You can buy more shares in your home in future, as and when you can afford to do so. This is known as ‘staircasing’. If you buy more shares, you’ll pay less rent. The amount of rent you pay will be based on the size of the share in your home you have not bought.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the Right to Shared Ownership, you must be the tenant of a housing association (or tenant of another Registered Provider of social housing that is not a local authority, co-operative housing association, or Community Land Trust). The Right to Shared Ownership does not apply to homes in remote rural areas, or specialist homes for older people or people with disabilities.

Although they cannot be accessed through the Right to Shared Ownership, specialist homes for older people or people with disabilities are available on Shared Ownership terms through the Older Persons Shared Ownership (OPSO) and Home Ownership for People with Long-Term Disabilities (HOLD) schemes.

To be eligible for the Right to Shared Ownership, you must also:

have lived in your current home for at least 12 months
have been a tenant of social and/or affordable housing for at least three years (this need not be for three years consecutively or with the same landlord)
satisfy all of the usual eligibility criteria for the Shared Ownership scheme, including its income threshold (a gross annual household income of £80,000 or less when buying outside of London, and £90,000 or less when buying in London).

A full list of eligibility criteria can be found on the Right to Shared Ownership application form.

Using the Right to Shared Ownership to purchase a share in your current home is a financial commitment. For example, you may lose your home and the money you put into it if you do not pay your rent. Therefore, we recommend that you read The Right to Shared Ownership: A guide for tenants before applying. We also advise that you seek professional financial and/or legal advice before applying.

How to apply

To begin the application process, please contact your landlord to express your interest in using the Right to Shared Ownership. You can find further information on what’s involved in the application process in the The Right to Shared Ownership: A guide for tenants and on the Gov.uk guide about how to apply.

You can also contact the Right to Buy Agent service for advice and guidance on how to apply.