When Martin and Stephanie bought a shared ownership property in March 2021, they felt like they had achieved what many under-35s struggle to do – take their first step onto the property ladder.
The house itself was a beautiful semi-detached property in a village in the West Midlands. Considering how difficult it can be for young people to purchase a house, especially in a village setting, it allowed Martin and Stephanie to enjoy many country walks and the other perks of village life.
“We just could not believe our luck. I had grown up in that part of the world, and to be able to buy a house in a village that I had come to know as a kid when I was only 31 made me feel so lucky and privileged. Stephanie had not grown up in the same part of the world as me, but she also really enjoyed everything this village had to offer,” Martin explained.
The UK Government introduced shared ownership to enable buyers to purchase a share of a property and pay a subsidised rent on the outstanding share as a means of getting more people onto the housing ladder. The scheme makes it easier for individuals and families to purchase a house because buying a smaller share of a property requires a smaller deposit and mortgage.
Under shared ownership, the rent is a charge for using the housing association’s share of a property and nothing else. The rent is calculated based on the portion of the house you do not own.
Homeowners typically pay service charges that cover the maintenance of shared spaces and communal areas. This is because shared ownership properties are mostly leasehold and most of them are managed by housing associations.
The scheme has been successful in many ways. According to the English Housing Survey published in July 2026, there were 252,000 shared ownership properties in 2024/2025, an increase from 161,000 in 2019/2020.
For Martin and Stephanie, the property’s location and type made it a dream come true in many ways, and they even discussed extending the property and perhaps one day purchasing a greater share of it from the housing association.
But over time, Stephanie struggled to find employment close to the property, which prompted them to consider alternative ideas for where they needed to live.
Over time, there were unexpected issues such as anti-social behaviour within the area, an aspect which is outlined in the UK Government’s guidelines, where social landlords have a duty to correctly manage and help resolve anti-social behaviour.
“A home is meant to be a place of peace and quiet, but some neighbours were causing not just us but the rest of the community issues. The housing association told us over the phone that they were going to give us paperwork to record the incidents, but this is something that did not happen. Thankfully, the police dealt with the incidents well and we could enjoy the last few months at our home in peace. However, the problems did highlight the disparity between what should have been dealt with and the reality in our case,” Martin said.
The homebuying and selling process currently has many legacy challenges to overcome to achieve an efficient transaction and is in the middle of being reformed by the UK Government so aspects run more smoothly for those who live in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has its own system). For shared ownership properties, it can be especially challenging.
“We were delighted to receive an initial offer on our house two months after we placed it on the market in October 2023. However, our experience then became more complex, with the initial buyer’s mortgage adviser persuading them that the house was potentially overvalued by the housing association. This meant the buyer dropped out of the chain and decided to buy a house for the same value that did not come under shared ownership. It set us back so much because we then lost out on a property we really wanted to buy, as the sellers took it off the market,” Martin explained.
Under shared ownership, you cannot set or negotiate your own asking price to speed up a sale. Valuations for shared ownership properties must be renewed every three months, which frustrated Martin and Stephanie because they had to pay for these valuations on each separate occasion.
This is not the only factor that Martin and Stephanie encountered when trying to sell their share of a shared ownership property; a housing association is given a mandatory nomination period of four to 12 weeks to market the property on its own waiting list first. This can result in delays in selling the house while shared owners are left waiting for the nomination period to end.
Martin and Stephanie were struggling to sell their house, and the estate agent recommended that they reduce the asking price after it had struggled to sell for six months.
“We had to pay for a lower valuation from the surveyor again before the estate agent could sell our house at a reduced price due to the complexities of shared ownership,” Stephanie said.
Eventually, they sold the property 11 months after putting it on the market and moved into a home they 100 per cent own.
Despite the problems with selling the property and the subsequent anti-social behaviour that unfortunately formed part of their initial housing journey, Martin and Stephanie do not regret going down the shared ownership route, as it provided a distinctive opportunity to gain that initial footing on the housing ladder, which might not have been achieved elsewhere.
“Anti-social behaviour is not unique to shared ownership properties, and considering we had to stay in that part of the Midlands for Martin’s work, it was the right decision at the right time. Shared ownership gave us a step onto the housing ladder, as it does with so many first-time buyers. We got to live in a beautiful village and enjoy village life at a time when we keep hearing that living in a place like that is out of reach for so many young people. We were fortunate in many ways, but having a good estate agent really helped us get through the homebuying and selling process,” Martin explained.
What gave them extra confidence was knowing their estate agent was regulated and a member of Propertymark.
“That was really reassuring for us. We hadn’t heard of Propertymark before, as the estate agent we originally bought our old house through didn’t appear to be a member. The agents we chose to sell our home were different. They were supportive, kept in regular contact and visited us frequently. Most importantly, they had the knowledge and experience of shared ownership that we needed to help us navigate the sale.”
