Staircasing

Staircasing is the term used to increase the share in your shared ownership home. Unless your lease says otherwise, you must be a shared ownership leaseholder and have owned a share of at least 25% in your home for 12 months or more before you can begin to increase your share of ownership.

If you want to increase the share you already own in your property, you will need to write to us stating how  much you would like to increase it by. The smallest amount you can increase your share by is 10% of the property’s value, going up in 5% increments to a maximum of 100% ownership.

We will write confirming the date of your application and asking you for a valuation report, mortgage approval letter, and details of your solicitor.

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Valuation and Pricing Your Share

You buy more shares based on the current market value of your home – and not the value at the time of your first purchase. You therefore need to have your property valued by an independent surveyor before making your decision as to how much more of your home you can afford to buy.

To determine the value, you need to instruct an independent RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) / FRICS (Fellow of Royal institute of Chartered Surveyors) registered surveyor. You can instruct a surveyor of your choice or we have an experienced panel of surveyors that can all assist you. They provide very competitive rates for Inquilab residents.

If you choose to use your own surveyor, they must meet the following criteria:

• The valuer needs to be independent and cannot be associated with any estate agents
• The valuer must not be related to you
• The valuer must not be employed by any bank/building society
• The valuer must be registered with the recognised qualification of MRICS or FRICS
• Inquilab will require a copy of the valuation report which should be valid for a period of three months (and should be valid until completion takes place)
• The report must include at least three comparable properties used to determine the value
• The report must also state that Inquilab can use the contents of the valuation report
• If you have carried out any improvements to the property you should make the surveyor aware when they visit. A separate figure should be provided in the report to confirm the type and value of the improvements

Please note that we always require a copy of the full valuation report and we may ask the surveyor to justify the valuation provided.

We will provide you with a cost for the fee payable to one of our panel of surveyors but this is typically around £300 + VAT.

When we have received the valuation fee from yourself, should you decide to go ahead with our surveyors, we will arrange for the surveyor to carry out an open market valuation of your home.

When we receive the valuation report, we will write to you with the market value of your home as well as attaching the valuation report. We will also tell you what the new rent and service charge will be after staircasing.

For all Staircasing transactions, there are administration charges for dealing with your application. We make a charge to cover the cost of providing a service to you as well as our professional fees.

If you decide to proceed, we will require you to complete a Staircasing Acceptance Form which contains our fee of £600 to cover our administration fees and professional fees, as well as an acceptance of an abortive fee of £450 if for some reason the staircasing does not go through.

On this Staircasing Acceptance Form you will also be required to fill in the solicitors and lenders details.

Our solicitors will then be provided with the case details to take over the process until completion.

It is anticipated that a Staircasing transaction will be complete within three months. You and your solicitor need to work to this timescale and ensure that you provide all the relevant information required to progress accordingly.

If you wish to discuss any part of the staircasing process, please contact Inquilab directly.