Shared Ownership Problems

Quality Street

Can I ask did you ever resolve this situation? I am in exactly the same situation, I bought on the shared ownership scheme a one bedroom (by choice because it was all I could afford in the boom) and then I had a baby, thought we will save a new deposit and move and then the housing crash. I have chased the Council for years trying to get them to introduce a trade up scheme (before you start I am not looking for any debt forgiveness) but the BANKS who us tax payers have helped out are working with the people and being reasonable the COUNCILS are pretending the housing crises never happened and as usual low income tax payers are taking the hit! Anyway I would love to know if you have had a resolution, I am literally at the end of my tether, paying a fortune every month for an unsuitable property I feel like throwing the keys at them and renting a suitable family home.

Michael D Not Higgins

Holy zombie thread, Batman! Are you still in a one bed years after your child was born? Where does the kid sleep?

the_syco

Quality Street wrote: »

I feel like throwing the keys at them and renting a suitable family home.

The bank could then sell the house for 10k, and hit you with the NE bill... have you looked into selling it?

The_Morrigan

Quality Street I've given you your own thread as the thread you posted in was two years old.

Kelly06

The shared ownership scheme was only ever meant to be a mechanism for low income families and single purchasers to access the property ladder.

The whole idea of the scheme was that after a couple of years the purchaser could show regular payments of their mortgage and would have built up some equity in the property.

It was envisaged that the purchaser would obtain a mortgage to buy out the councils portion of the property within a couple of years. The thing is along came the housing boom which meant that the councils portion grew in value year on year which meant that the monthly rent payable also grew every year.By the time I got to buy out my own shared ownership I owed more than I borrowed even after paying off my mortgage for two years. To my surprise when I got my new mortgage I was paying about 150 a month less for the mortgage on the whole house !!!

It's clear you are living in an overcrowded situation which will only get worse so I would approach a councillor rather than a TD as the councillor can talk directly to the council staff. I'm not sure what can be done for you because technically you own 50% or more of your own property. Would it be possible for the council to buy back your portion and take the unit back into stock? Have they made any suggestions to sort the issues? Have you gotten redemption figures from them since the market crash?

Willm5499

Heya :-)
Im sorry to hear that. We expressed all options to the council & kept getting negative replies so we felt like we had no alternative but to hand the keys back, go private renting & contact New Beginings. They were brilliant in advising us with everything. We went to court in May to have the apmt signed back over to the council. New beginings then advised us that the council would be looking for payment for our half of the price of the apmt which they did, but the apmt had to be re-valued & they sent us a statement telling us we owed them €90,000 !!! We then contacted the New Beginings again & they are now getting together a DSA (debt settlement arrangement) plan to put forward to the council. We will hear back soon if they accept it, €150 per month for the next 5 years & after the 5 years is up the debt is wiped. If they dont accept, then they get nothing & we are declared bankrupt for 3 years. Obviously we want to pay the debt but the ball is in their court once again so time will tell. I hope this has helped a little. Let me know how you get on, fingers crossed for you & your family :-)...