Shared ownership

The shared ownership scheme helps people who cannot afford to buy a house on the open market.

Through the scheme, you can buy a share in a property (usually between 10% to 75%) and pay rent on the remaining share. The remaining share is owned by a housing association or developer. You would then pay both the monthly mortgage on your share and the rent on the other share. However, these two payments are still less than the mortgage would be on an open market property. You can find out about the costs involved in shared ownership on GOV.UK.
 

Find out more about the scheme on GOV.UK.
 

Eligibility

Use the shared ownership scheme eligibility checker to check if you are eligible to buy a shared ownership home.

Find a shared ownership home

Use GOV.UK's shared ownership provider search to find organisations in West Berkshire that sell shared ownership homes (type 'West Berkshire' into the search bar on the first page).

Buying more shares ('staircasing')

It may be possible for you to increase or decrease the share you own later. This is known as 'staircasing'.

You can find out about staircasing on GOV.UK.

Selling a shared ownership property

When you sell a shared ownership property, the proceeds are split according to the shares that you and the housing association or developer own. For example, if you own a 50% share, you would get 50% of the value of the property when you sell it.

However, if you had 'staircased', for example, from a 50% to an 80% share, you would get 80% of the value of the property when you sell it.

You can find out more about selling a shared ownership home on GOV.UK.