A step-by-step guide
When you’re ready to sell your shared ownership home, we will market your share for the first eight weeks. This is a clause in your lease designed to help other first-time buyers secure a Shared Ownership home, as you did.
We’ll produce professional photographs and floorplans of your home to show it in its best light and advertise it online and to our database. If we find a buyer for you, we’ll charge a fee of 1% plus VAT of the value of your share.
Please note that if your home is outside of London we may refer you to First Step, who will in most cases be better equipped to find a suitable buyer in your area. First Steps will charge a fee of 1% of the full market value + VAT.
If we can’t find a buyer you can choose to let us keep trying or we’ll give you permission to sell your home on the open market.
Before you look any further into selling your home, please make sure to read the update on our building safety programme.
So that we can advertise your home, you’ll need the following documents:
A valid valuation report – this will need to have been carried out by an independent Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) accredited surveyor.
A valid Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) – An EPC is valid for 10 years. You can check if you already have one on the EPC Register website. Otherwise you can order one from a UK EPC Provider and send us evidence that you’ve done this.
A copy of your lease – If you don’t already have a copy, you can get one from the Land Registry. Alternatively, the solicitor who acted for you when you bought your home may have a copy.
Please note: If your lease has 80 years or less remaining you may find difficult to sell. For further information on lease years, please read our guide: Extend your lease. Alternatively, you can contact our resale and legal team on 0203 815 0060 or resaleandlegal@nhg.org.uk.
Evidence of our consent for improvements (if applicable) – if you carried out improvements and wish to have these considered when you sell, you’ll need to provide a copy of our written consent. We may not be able to consider improvements without this. If you don’t have a copy, contact your Property Management Officer to discuss this.
We won’t be able to advertise your home without these documents.
You’ll need a valuation of your home carried out by an independent, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) accredited surveyor.
You can use one from our panel, but you don’t have to. If you choose to instruct a surveyor who doesn’t appear on our panel, please let us know so that we can provide them with a copy of our valuation report guidelines.
The surveyor will ask you about the number of years left on your lease, your rent and any service charges.
If you’ve made improvements to your home, the surveyor will need to assess these separately in the report. You must have had our permission to make these improvements or they may not be considered when you sell. For information on home improvements, please read the home improvements guide.
You can also find out more about how improvements affect your home in our FAQ’s section.
You should make sure that you’re happy with the valuation report and that it will be valid at the point of sale before you send it to us. Valuation reports typically expire every three months, so if it runs out before we can advertise your home, you’ll have to pay for another one.
You’ll need to instruct a solicitor to handle the sale of your home. You may want to use the solicitor that you used to buy the home, or you may want to use someone new.
Whoever you use, we recommend checking that they have experience of dealing with Shared Ownership as this is likely to help the transaction move along more smoothly.
If you don’t already have a solicitor, we have an independent panel of solicitors that you may find helpful.
Fill in the resale instruction form, you will need:
- A copy of your valuation report
- Your Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
- Proof of consent to any improvements you have carried out (if applicable)
- A copy of your Lease
Remember, we won’t be able to advertise your home without all of these documents.
What happens next?
Advertising your home
When we’ve received your instruction, we’ll contact you to agree a date for your viewing. We recommend scheduling this three weeks from when we receive your instruction so we can create your advert, liaise with your local authority and advertise long enough to generate interest.
We’ll put you in touch with our professional photographer, who will need to visit your home to take pictures and produce floorplans. Once we have these we’ll upload your property to suitable advertising portals and use the images to produce an e-flyer which we’ll send to suitable applicants held on our database.
Your viewing
You’ll carry out your own viewing. Customers who are interested in viewing your home will be able to call us to book an appointment.
We’ll contact you the afternoon before your viewing to let you know who’ll be attending and at what time.
You can find hints and tips on how to make the most of your viewing in our viewing guide.
After your viewing
Customers will be invited to let us know if they’re interested in your home. We’ll forward the details of any interested customers to your local authority so that they can be prioritised. This process can take up to five working days. We’ll then offer your home to the customer with the highest priority. If they no longer wish to buy your home, we will continue to offer it to customers in order of their priority.
If we don’t manage to find a buyer for your home and your eight week nomination period has expired we will give you permission to sell your home on the open market.
Find out more about selling your home via an estate agent.
Financial assessment
We’ll ask an independent financial advisor to carry out an assessment to check that the home is affordable for your nominated buyer. We’ll also carry out a telephone interview with them to check they understand the process and the Shared Ownership product that they are buying before instructing your solicitor, the buyers’ solicitor and our solicitor to begin the process of selling your home.
The sales process
Once we’ve instructed solicitors, you and your buyer should liaise with your solicitors to progress the sale. We’ll be on hand to offer advice along the way, but most of the negotiations will be done between you and your buyer.
The buyers solicitor will obtain a copy of your lease and raise leasehold enquiries which forms part of your management pack. So that they can respond, your solicitor will need to get some information from your managing agent.
It’s standard practice for your managing agent to charge an administration fee for this, which you’ll need to pay for. It’s important to do this as soon as possible as otherwise it will slow your sale down.
It usually takes around four weeks for the buyers mortgage offer to come through. Please let your sales consultant know if the buyer hasn’t had a survey of your property after two weeks.
Your solicitor will be able to let you know once all the conveyancing has been completed and you are ready to exchange. Completion of the sale usually takes place five to ten working days after exchange.
The costs
Costs will vary depending on how your home is sold. If you are selling your share through us you will need to pay for:
- Your valuation report
- Your solicitors fees
- Our solicitor’s fees
- Your management pack (you can find this cost in our administration fees document)
- Our resale fee is 1% of the share value plus VAT. Please note that the resale fee for properties outside of London listed with "First Step" is 1% of the full market value plus VAT.
Learn more
If you'd like more information about selling your home, please contact our resale and legal team on 0203 815 0060 or resaleandlegal@nhg.org.uk.