Homeowner information
If you are a homeowner with us, this is your go-to resource for all things related to homeownership with us. This includes Right to Buy and Right to Acquire as well as Shared Ownership, and important legal information you need to know regarding buying and selling properties.
While the majority of our homes are for social or affordable rent, there are opportunities to buy through Shared Ownership, where you'll buy an initial share in a property and then pay rent on the remaining shares.
Find out more:
Right to buy and right to acquire
You may be eligible to buy your property under the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme. Or, if you are not eligible for Right to Buy but have been a public sector (housing association or local authority) tenant for over 3 years, you may be eligible to purchase your property under the Right to Acquire (RTA) scheme.
For more information on both schemes, as well as who can apply, eligibility criteria and how to start the process, please refer to the following:
General information
Here you'll find lots of useful information if you're a homeowner with us. This is a general overview but any agreements you have with us will include full details. If you'd like to chat through anything, please get in touch and let us know your query.
Discount repayment
Once you have purchased your property under RTB or RTA, the transfer document will contain a provision that the discount you’ve received must be repaid should you sell the property within 5 years of your purchase.
The amount of discount to be repaid, if you sell the property within 5 years of your purchase, will be a percentage of the resale value and will be reduced by 20% for each year that has passed since your purchase.
If you are selling your property within 5 years of purchasing under RTB or RTA please click here to contact us about re-payment of the discount
S157 Restriction
When a property in a rural area has been sold under RTB, a restriction is imposed under s157 of the Housing Act 1985.
This prevents the property being sold to anyone, other than a purchaser, who has lived or worked in the local area for at least 3 years (if there is more than one purchaser, only one of them must satisfy the requirement).
Flagship requires payslips, council tax statements, or bank statement for at least 3 years as evidence.
Permissions
Once you own your home, you may need our permission to make alterations to the property.
This restriction would have been placed on your property to protect the surrounding properties. Please check your conveyance/transfer/lease – if your property is leasehold please refer to our leaseholder hub.
There will be a small administrative cost payable to Flagship – please see the below table for a breakdown of payable costs.
Right of First Refusal (RFR)
If you sell your property within 10 years of purchasing under RTB or RTA, you will need to offer the property back to Flagship for the full current market value prior to selling on the open market.
If your offer has not been accepted by Flagship within 8 weeks, the property can be sold on the open market.
If you want to offer Flagship RFR, please contact the conveyancing team here:
Release of covenant
If the home that you own was once a local authority or housing association property, there may be a restriction on your title deeds preventing you building another property on your land.
If you wish to do this, you can approach us in relation to releasing this covenant. If we agree, we will carry out a release of covenant valuation to calculate the fee payable in relation to the release.
This is because we are a community benefit corporation and are bound to achieve the best value for any transaction. You will be responsible for the cost of the valuation which is currently around £600 plus VAT.
We will then send out an offer letter to you stating that we agree to release the covenant for the premium referred to in the valuation and subject to payment of our legal fees of £600 plus VAT. You will need to instruct a solicitor to deal with the transaction, and you will be responsible for their legal fees.
Certificates of compliance/Deeds of Covenant
You may live in an area where service charges/grounds maintenance fees are payable to Flagship.
If this is the case, there will likely be a restriction on your title deeds stating that there can be no sale without a certificate of compliance, confirming the provision of the original sale document has been complied with.
When you sell your property, we will require your purchaser to enter into an agreement called a Deed of Covenant, in which they agree to pay these fees on request as set out in the original transfer/conveyance.
On payment of our fee (see table below) we will provide this to your solicitors on request and once this has been returned to us signed by the purchasers, we will provide a certificate of compliance to deal with the restriction and enable registration to take place.
If you have any queries about restrictions on your title please click here [link to conveyancing inbox]
List of our fees
Retrospective permission
£120.00
Certificate of Compliance
£175.00
Deed of Covenant
£175.00
Certificate of Compliance and Deed of Covenant
£200
S156a pre-emption certificate of compliance
£175.00
S157 restriction certificate of compliance
£175.00
Deed of Postponement
£150.00