Selling your shared ownership home
If you want to sell your shared ownership home, you’ll need to contact our Resales team, who’ll be able to support you through the sales process.
Your lease generally gives us the first option to market and sell your home to another shared owner. The standard timescale noted in most leases is 8 weeks, but when reviewing the process, we’ve changed this timescale to 4 weeks for all customers. This is known as the nomination period.
If you want to sell your share, here's how it works:
- To find out how much your home is worth, you’ll need to arrange and pay for a valuation by a RICS qualified surveyor (Royal institute of Chartered Surveyors). We provide a list of suggested Surveyors in our Resales leaflet, but you can also contact any RICS qualified Surveyor.
- They’ll provide a valuation report, confirming the full market value of your home, which is valid for 3 months. If the sale takes longer, you’ll need to ask them to extend the valuation.
- Your sale price will be calculated by the full market value multiplied by the percentage share you own: For example:
- Full market value = £200,000
- Share owned = 25%
- Value of share = 25% of £200,000 = £50,000
- Once you have a valuation, you’ll need to complete and sign the application form at the back of the Resales leaflet
- Send it to leasehold@vividhomes.co.uk with the following attachments:
- A copy of your valuation report
- A current Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
- Selected photos of your home in JPEG format, eg one exterior view, one of each room
- After we have received the above, we will be in touch to discuss your sale and talk you through the next steps. We aim to put your home on the market within 48 hours
- You’ll need to find and instruct a solicitor to act for you during the sale. We recommend using a solicitor who’s used to dealing with shared ownership sales and have some suggestions in our Resales leaflet
- We instruct our solicitor to start the resales process
- Our solicitor writes to yours to give details of payments required for a legal pack and legal fees. It’s your responsibility to pay these fees
- The legal pack will be produced within 10 days of receipt of payment, and provides information to help respond to enquiries raised by the buyers solicitors about the home
- Your solicitor will be responsible for collecting a share of rent and service charges from your buyer on the day of completion to cover the month in which they complete
- It’s important that you continue to pay your rent and service charges until your sale completes, otherwise you’ll be in breach of your lease and the sale may be stopped
Selling your home can take on average from three to five months, although some sales may take longer to complete.
- The RICS valuation – costs vary depending on the surveyor used so always ask for a quote before instructing, and also find out what they charge to extend your valuation after the initial three months
- Selling fee – if we find a buyer for your home, then we're entitled to a selling fee which is 1% of the share sold plus VAT
- Solicitor fees – the solicitor you choose will charge you fees which they should confirm to you before you decide to use them. You’ll also need to cover our solicitor fees and an estimate of this cost will be provided in the initial letter sent from our solicitor to yours
- Legal pack – this contains information such as service charges for your property, insurance details, any major works due and a fire risk assessment (if your home is a flat). The information is required for the benefit of the buyer so they have all the required details of the home and their current and future financial commitments
- If we don’t find a buyer within the 4 week period, then you're free to go to any estate agent of your choice to sell your home
- The agent can market the property for 100% sale, as well as market the share only
- If the agent finds a buyer who's buying a share of the property and not 100%, they'll need to contact us to assess the buyer before we proceed. This is to ensure that the buyer is eligible for the shared ownership scheme and the property is affordable for them. 100% buyers do not need to be assessed by us
- The agent needs to send us a copy of the 'Memorandum of Sale' once a sale is agreed
- We'll then instruct our solicitor who contacts yours and the sale will proceed in the normal way
- Always check with the agent you select, what they will charge you when they find a buyer, as prices can vary dramatically
- You won’t have to pay any selling fee to us as we didn’t find the buyer for you
Make sure to check out our Resales leaflet as it has some great advice and support in the process
