Shared Ownership

Shared Ownership

This section is for you if you bought your home under our 'Part-Buy, Part-Rent' or Newbuild Homebuy scheme.

We hope that you will find it helpful.  If you have ideas about any other information you would like to see in this section for Shared Owners, you can email us at homeownership@coastlinehousing.co.uk or ring our Home Ownership Team on 0808 202 7728.

Your rights and responsibilities

Your rights are explained in the Charter for Housing Association Applicants and Residents.  The charter is issued by the Housing Corporation and sets out your legal rights and what you can expect from your landlord.  It also tells you what you can do if you think we are not keeping to the Charter.

This Charter does not apply to you if you own your home outright.  However, you have the same legal rights as a shared owner.

Right to occupy your home
You have the right to stay in your home as long as you keep to the conditions set out in your lease agreement.  If you break them, we may apply to the court to forfeit your lease and repossess your home.  The types of situation where we may seek possession are:

• Non-payment of rent
• Where you, or people living with you or visiting you, cause nuisance or harassment to other people
  Where you home is used for illegal or immoral purposes

Our aim is to help you stay in your home and we will only take steps to repossess your home where there is no reasonable alternative.

Right to pass on your home
If you die your lease or your interest in your lease, if you are a joint leaseholder, will pass to whoever you nominate in your will.  If you die without leaving a will, your lease will pass to your nearest family member.

If your will is challenged, the courts will decide who succeeds to your lease.

See the section 'Selling your home' for what to do if you want to sell your share of your home.

Right to take in lodgers and sub-tenants.
If you are a shared owner, your lease does not allow you to sublet or give a sub tenant total control of your home.  However, in certain exceptional circumstances, we may allow you to sublet.  You must explain your situation to us and show good reasons for wishing to sublet.

You must:

• Notify us in writing of your intention to sublet
• Have our written approval before you sublet your home
• Be up to date with your rent and service charge payments and be making payment to us by standing order
• As security, three months rent in advance may be required
• Let your property through a reputable lettings agency or estate agency assured shorthold
• Grant an assured shorthold tenancy for no more than 12 months and give us a copy of the agreement  We'll review the situation after 6 months.
• Get written approval from your mortgage lender to sublet and send us a copy of the approval
• Provide us with your contact address and notify us if you move.

Right to be consulted
You have a legal right to be consulted if we want to change your lease.  If we plan major building work that affects your home or significantly affects your service charge, we must also consult you before we start the work.

The Housing Corporation also expects us to consult you if we;

• Plan changes to the way we manage your home
• Propose to change the way we protect service charge contributions
• Propose to sell the freehold of your home.

We use various methods of consultation

• We may visit you at home
• We may write to you
• We may put an article in the residents' newsletter
• We may call a residents' meeting
• We may speak to the Residents' Association

Whatever method of consultation we use, we will give you time to respond and we will consider your comments.  We will then let you know what we plan to do.

Right to information
The Housing Corporation sets out a list of information all residents are entitled to know in the Charter for applicants and residents. 

If you pay a service charge, you have a number of important legal rights, including:

• A right to be notified in advance of any changes to your service charge
• A right to challenge your service charge at a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal
• A right to see a summary of the service charge costs for the previous financial year and to inspect the accounts and invoices on which the summary is based
• A right to a summary of the insurance policy for your building
• A right to be consulted about work which is likely to cost you more than £250 inclusive of VAT
• A right to be charged, or notified of service charge costs, within 18 months of the cost being incurred
• A right to be consulted where a service contract of more than 12 months (for example for gardening) will cost more than £100 per annum for each Leaseholder, and the contract is for more than one year

You will find more detailed information in the Landlord and Tenant Acts 1985 and 1987 and Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, which should be available at your local library.

You can also contact LEASE (Leasehold Advisory Service) www.lease-advice.org.uk

Responsibilities

Under your lease you have the following responsibilities:

• You must pay your rent and service charge on time.
• You must pay other expenses like gas, water, electricity, council tax etc. directly to the service provider.
• You must keep your property in reasonable condition inside and outside, including fixtures and fittings.
• You must carry out all repairs which are your responsibility.  Your lease is a 'full repairing lease'. If you own a house, you are responsible for all repairs to the property, whatever the share you own.  If you live in a flat, your lease will tell you which areas you must repair and which are the landlord's responsibility.
• You must get our written permission before carrying out any major alterations.
• You must tell us if you want to resell your property.  We will tell you about our resale procedure.  You must not assign (sell or transfer) your lease to someone else without our permission, although your part of the lease can be inherited.
• If you live in a flat, you must not keep animals without our permission.
• You or your visitors must not cause a disturbance or nuisance to your neighbours, nor harass anyone, nor use your property for illegal or immoral purposes.
• You must not sublet your home.  If you are having financial difficulties, please speak to our Home Ownership Team.

Our responsibilities

• To manage and maintain any shared areas of the development (areas that have not been sold with individual properties).
• To maintain the structure of the building if you live in a flat
• To provide relevant information about your rent and service charge
• To collect service charge and ground rent
• To insure the building. 

If you live in a house, we will insure your home until you own 100% of it.  If you need to claim on our buildings insurance, you will have to pay any 'excess' relating to the insurance claim.  Click here to download a copy of our insurance policy.

In addition to the lease, the law governs both you and us. We must also meet Housing Corporation rules and standards of performance. Further information about these appears elsewhere in this section.

Your Lease

When you buy a home through shared ownership, you sign a lease agreement.  This is a legally binding contract that sets out the rights and responsibilities of the lessee (you) and the lessor (us).  You should keep your copy of the agreement in a safe place.

This section does not cover all of the details about your particular property that your solicitor should have explained when you bought your home.  Instead it offers general information to help you in most circumstances.  Contact the Home Ownership Team if you need more help

If more than one person signs the lease, this is called a 'joint lease'.  Joint leaseholders have equal rights and are equally responsible for meeting the terms of the lease.  These responsibilities continue until they are legally ended, even if one of the leaseholders moves out.  See the section on 'Relationship breakdown' to find out what to do in this situation.

General terms in your lease
The lease for your property sets out the following:

• The boundaries of your property and any associated parts of the development which have been transferred with your property (for example, parking spaces).  It also described the shared areas and grounds.
• The amount of rent and service charge you have to pay.  It also explains how we review your rent and how often.
• How you must pay your rent.
• The type of expenses your service charge covers
• What your responsibilities are
• What our responsibilities are
• How you can buy more of your property. This is known as staircasing.
• How you can sell your equity in the property.  This is known as resale.

Can the terms of your lease be changed?
The terms of your lease will change if you buy the remaining equity in your home and own your home outright. More information appears in the section 'Buying more shares of your home'.

In exceptional circumstances we can change the terms of your lease with your written approval.  This is done via our solicitors and a cost may be incurred.

We can only change the terms of your lease without your written approval if we have a court order.  The Residential Property Tribunal Service will only grant an order if we can show that the change is needed.

How long does your lease last?

Each lease lasts for a fixed term.  We usually grant leases for a term of 125 years from the date we first sell the home.  Very rarely we are forced to grant leases for shorter terms; this may occur if we are not the freeholders.

The time remaining on your lease depends on the original term and the length of time since we first granted the lease.

We can only end your lease by getting a possession order through the County Court.  We will only do this as a last resort if you break the agreement in a serious way, for example by not paying your rent and service charge or causing nuisance or harassment.

Remortgaging your home

There are many mortgage deals available and we are aware that our customer want to take advantage of them.  As we have a financial interest in your home, it is important that we are aware of and agree to any changes in your lender and how much you are borrowing.  You will need our written permission if you want to remortgage or borrow more against your property.

We will ask you for further information before we agree to this.  As your lender may charge fees for dealing with your mortgage application or using solicitors, we suggest that you contact us first for advice.

If we have to pay legal or valuation fees to deal with your request, we will pass them on to you.  For more information, contact our Home Ownership Team on 0808 202 7728.

Repairs and maintenance

Who is responsible for repairs in my home?
You have a full repairing lease, which means that you are responsible for keeping your home in a good state of repair.

Your lease will tell you what you own (the 'demise') and therefore what you are responsible for maintaining.

If you own a house you are responsible for all repairs and maintenance to your home whatever the size of share that you own, but, depending on the terms of your lease, we may be responsible for:

• Communal refuse facilities (bin stores)
• Communal external boundaries, walls, fences and pathways
• Lighting in communal areas

If you own a flat, you are responsible for all repairs and maintenance except:

• The foundations and damp course
• The roof
• Rainwater gutters and down pipes
• Communal staircases and entrance halls
• Communal windows 
• Communal electrics and lighting
• Entry phones
• Communal TV aerials
• Communal fire protection systems
• Communal refuse facilities
• Plumbing up to main stop to, communal water tank and communal soil pipe
• External boundaries
• External doorframes and external flat windows.

Who can I get to carry out repairs?
If the repair is your responsibility you must arrange for a contractor to make the repair and are responsible for payment.  We recommend that you obtain a quotation before agreeing to have work done.

If the repair is our responsibility we will arrange for a contractor to make the repair. We will collect your share of the payment via the service charge.

How do I report a repair?

If a repair is required within a communal area you can report this to our Customer Service Team on 0808 202 7728.

What if I live in a newly built property?

The builder may be responsible for making good any construction or installation defects that appear in the first few months.  We will tell you before you move in if any guarantee period applies to your home.  If your home is covered by a builder's guarantee, it is important to report any defects to our Customer Service Team as soon as you discover them.  We will then inform the builder on your behalf.

What happens at the end of the defects liability period?

At the end of the defects liability period your home will be inspected and any problems noted and referred to the builder to remedy. The contractor is not responsible for any damage caused by you.

Can I make alterations or improvements to my home?

You must request our written permission prior to undertaking any improvements to your home, for example, replacing kitchen units, erecting a shed or building a loft extension.  We will not give permission if the proposed work will make the property unsafe or reduce its value or if there are any legal restrictions affecting your home that prevent it.  It is your responsibility to ensure that local authority planning a building consent is obtained if necessary and that the work is done to a high standard.  We may want to inspect the work when it has been completed.

If at a later date you sell your home, we will value the improvements separately.  It is therefore important that you keep records of plans, invoices and receipts, along with a copy of your permission letter from us.  The cost of your improvement may be more than the value added to your property, as assessed by an independent valuer.

Who is responsible for testing my gas and electricity supplies?

Because the term of your shared ownership lease is over 7 years, you are responsible for testing your own gas and electricity supplies.

We recommend that you test your smoke alarms once a week and have all gas appliances serviced once a year by a CORGI registered contractor.

What about buildings insurance?

It is a condition of your lease that we arrange the buildings insurance on your behalf. The cost of this is included in your rent.  It does not include cover for the contents of your home.  We recommend that you check your mortgage details to ensure that your lender is not charging you for buildings insurance.
If you buy 100% of the shared of your property and acquire the freehold, you will become responsible for your own buildings insurance.

Relationship breakdown

If you hold your lease jointly with another person, you are both responsible for meeting the terms of the lease, including paying rent and service charges, whether you are both living in the property or not.  If your relationship breaks down or there is a change in your family circumstances, you will need to consider what should happen to your lease.

We will normally allow you to add a joint leaseholder to your agreement, provided you and any other existing joint leaseholder agrees.  The additional leaseholder must not own another property or be ineligible for shared ownership.

We will normally allow you to remove a joint leaseholder from the lease, provided every existing joint leaseholder agrees.  Before we do this, we will need to check that the remaining leaseholders can afford to pay the rent, service charges and mortgage.

We cannot remove someone from the lease without his or her consent.  This is sometimes a problem when partners decide to separate.  If both partners want to stay in the home and cannot agree who will, you will need to take legal advice.  Only a court can decide who should keep the lease in these circumstances.

To change the names on a lease, you have to vary the lease, which you can only do with our consent.  You will need to employ a solicitor and pay their fee.

Selling your home

You must tell us if you plan to sell your home.  Your lease may give us the right to nominate a purchaser for your share.  You can sell your home on the open market if we cannot find someone within 8 weeks to purchase your home.

You must sell your home at a value set by an independent Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) qualified valuer.  This may be the local district valuer or another RICS.  Normally, we will instruct a valuer on your behalf, although you will be responsible for the cost.  If you prefer, you may instruct your own valuer with our agreement, provided that they are suitably qualified.

The valuer will value improvements that you have made separately.  This ensures that you get the full market value of improvements that you have made.  Refer to the section Repairs and Maintenance for more information about improvements.

For example, If you own a 50% share of a home worth £62,000 including £2,000 for improvements, your share would be valued at £32,000.  This is 50% of the value excluding improvements, £30,000, plus the value of the improvements, £2,000.

Once you know the value of your home and your share of the sale price, you can decide whether to proceed with the sale.  You will need to employ a solicitor if you decide to proceed.  We will try to nominate someone to buy your home.

You can sell your home on the open market if we cannot find a nominee within eight weeks, or our nominee takes too long to complete his or her purchase (the time limit is set out in your lease).

The valuation is valid for three months.  You must complete the sale of your home within three months.

When you sell your home you will pay for:

• The valuation
• Your solicitors
• Estate agent fees, if required.

You may also have to pay a mortgage redemption fee.  We will not allow you to sell if you owe rent or service charges.

Please contact us for further detailed guidance about selling your home.

Buying more shares in your home

Most shared ownership leases allow you to buy extra shares in your home.  This is sometimes called 'staircasing'.  Some leases do not allow staircasing or may set a limit on the maximum share you can own.  Refer to your lease or contact us if you are unsure if you can buy extra shares.

Your lease will tell you what size shares you can buy.  Most leases say that the smallest size of extra share that you can buy is 10%.  If you buy all of the remaining shares, you will own your home outright.

If you buy extra shares, we will charge you less rent.  The rent that you pay is based upon the share of your home that we own.  The amount of service charge that you pay will not change unless you become the 100% owner.

Your home will be valued before you can buy extra shares.  An independent valuer sets the value.  You will be responsible for the valuation fees. The valuer will assume that the property is well maintained and will exclude the value of improvements that you have made.  This means that the price that you pay for the extra share excludes the cost of any improvements that you have made.

We will let you know in writing the value of your home and how much the extra shares will cost, so that you can decide whether to proceed.  You must let us know in writing.  If you decide to proceed, you will need to appoint a solicitor.  You will also need to raise money to pay for the extra share; this could come from your savings or from an additional mortgage.

Completion must take place within three months of the valuation.

Please contact us for further information and detailed guidance.

Buying extra shares and immediate resale

If you sell on the open market, your purchaser may want to buy your home outright.  So you will need to buy the remaining shares in your home first.

Your solicitor will arrange for you to sell your home on the same day that you buy the remaining shares so that you do not need to raise money to buy the extra shares.

You must tell your solicitor and us if you need to buy the remaining shares in your home before you sell.

Buying all of the shares in your home

If you buy all the remaining shares in your home, you will own the home outright.

If you live in a house, you will usually become the freeholder of your own home.  We will cease to be your landlord.  You are responsible for providing your own buildings insurance.  If you house is on a development with communal gardens or other shared areas, we will continue to charge you a share of the cost for maintaining these areas through your service charge.

If you live in a flat, you will remain a leaseholder.  We will be the landlord.  As a flat owner, you will continue to pay service charges for things like buildings insurance, cleaning of common parts and repairs to the structure and common parts of your block.

Ways to pay

Your lease will tell you how often your ground rent or service charge is due.

There are a few ways you can pay us:

Direct Debit
Direct debit is the easiest and most convenient way to pay, for customers who either have or intend to open a post office, bank or building society direct payment or current account.
With Direct Debit, the right amount of rent is always taken from your bank account; if your rent increases, we are responsible for telling your bank.

You can ask us for a Direct Debit form, which will be sent to your home address. For information on paying your rent by Direct Debit, please call us on 0808 202 7728.

Online
You can pay us online by logging into the customer area on the right hand side of this page.

By post
Please send all payments to:
Coastline Housing Ltd
Ferris House
Dolcoath Avenue
Camborne
TR14 8SD
Cheques should be made payable to 'Coastline Housing Ltd' and crossed and marked 'A/C payee only'. Please write your rent account number on the back of your cheque in BLOCK CAPITALS.

Financial Hardship

If you are having difficulty in paying your rent, please let us know.  We will be able to discuss your individual circumstances and advise you on what needs to be done and provide advice on where to seek further help if required.

If you are having difficulty meeting your mortgage repayments, it is essential to speak to your mortgage lender as soon as possible; you may be able to avoid losing your home through repossession by negotiating different payment terms or a payment 'holiday'.  If you do face possession proceedings, you will need expert advice . Your local citizen's advice centre (www.citizensadvice.org.uk) or the Community Legal Service (0845 345 4345) may be able to offer legal advice. 

If there is a risk you may become homeless, you should contact your local authority housing department for advice as soon as possible.

Anti social behaviour

Most of us try to be good neighbours. If someone's behaviour does upset us, often a friendly word is all that is needed to resolve matters. Sometimes things can't be solved so easily and someone's behaviour can become a real nuisance. More on ASB >>

What is anti-social behaviour?
Your agreement with us says that you mustn't cause a nuisance or indulge in anti-social behaviour.  You are also responsible for the behaviour of your household, anyone who comes to visit you and any pets belonging to you or your visitors. 

Anti-social behaviour means acting in a way that causes or is likely to cause alarm, harassment or distress to one or more people in another household.  This includes your neighbours and any visitors to your neighbourhood, including staff or contractors working on our behalf.

What is harassment?
Harassment is a serious form of anti-social behaviour which is directed at individuals, their families or groups of individuals. It involves offensive behaviour that interferes with other people's quality of life.  Sometimes it results from discrimination because of people's colour, race, sex, sexuality, religious belief, age or disability.  We take allegations of harassment very seriously.

Harassment may involve

• Violence or threats of violence towards anyone.
• Violent or intimidating behaviour, including possessing a weapon or something that could be used as one.
• Insulting or racist words or behaviour, including threatening or abusive graffiti
• Vandalism, damage or threats of damage to someone's property
• Malicious phone calls or letters
• Deliberately playing music, TV's or radios at a high volume to annoy a neighbour.

Your rights
We believe that you have the right to enjoy living in your home and that everyone has the right to live in an environment free from intimidation and social behaviour.

We will investigate any complaints made relating to anti-social behaviour and take action that is appropriate to the seriousness of the behaviour.  This is not a guarantee that we will or can take legal action in every case.  Apart from very serious cases of violence or harassment, we encourage residents to try and sort out their differences where possible.   You should remember that a serious breach of your lease can result in the loss of your home as a court may order your lease agreement to be ended (forfeited) before its normal date of expiry.  We may take action to evict you if you are convicted for using your home for anything illegal.

Being a good neighbour

The types of nuisance and annoyance most likely to result in complaints are:

• Playing music, TV or radio too loudly or with windows open
• Offensive drunkenness or drug abuse
• Shouting, loud arguments (especially involving foul language), slamming doors
• Gathering in stairwells or outside properties, drinking, spitting or intimidating other residents
• Vandalism and graffiti
• Dumping rubbish
• Revving car or motorbike engines repeatedly
• Repairing motor vehicles on your own property or in shared areas (other than minor maintenance on your own vehicle)
• Dogs barking and fouling or being out of control
• DIY at unsociable hours
• Throwing things from balconies or out of windows

Pets
Measures such as keeping your dog under control and picking up after it are a matter of common sense.  Not leaving your dog along for long periods will help prevent prolonged barking becoming a problem.

Noise
Noise is one of the most common causes of neighbour disputes.  Apart from keeping the volume down on TVs, radios, musical instruments etc., it's best to warn your neighbours beforehand if you're planning to have a party and tell them when it will finish - better still, invite them along.  Keep the music down and ask people to be quiet when they leave.

You will need our permission for any public events in your home or in any shared areas, although normal private parties are not a problem.

Rubbish
Leaving rubbish outside your property isn't likely to endear you to your neighbours.  It's unsightly and can devalue your home.  It's also unhygienic and may attract vermin.

If you have large items to dispose of your local council may be able to arrange collection. Alternatively the SOFA project may be able to collect furniture that is suitable for re-use.

Making your views heard

Coastline Housing Ltd is committed to providing quality services to all Customers and Leaseholders.  We believe that customer participation and community development in the decision-making process is fundamental to our business development and is essential if customers are to truly influence service delivery, strategic priorities and ultimately the future direction of the Company.  Customer participation ensures that you, Coastline Housing Customers and Leaseholders, have the opportunity to tell us what you think about the services we provide, the way in which they are delivered and the standards that you expect from us.