Additional Staircasing

Staircasing lets you buy more shares in your property, usually in chunks of 5% or more. If you have a new model lease, you may be able to staircase by 1% annually for 15 years.

There are many reasons why a current shared owner would want to increase the percentage they own in their home. For example:

If you choose to purchase more shares, your mortgage will increase while your rental payments will decrease at the same time.

In most instances, you can purchase up to 100% of your home, in which case you would no longer pay any rent, just your mortgage along with any outlined service charges and ground rent.

The greater the share you own, the more you will benefit from increased property prices. If you go on to buy 100% of your home, you will also no longer be required to give your housing provider the opportunity to market the property first at the time of sale. To find out more about this process, speak to our dedicated shared ownership team.

If you staircase all the way to 100% ownership, you will likely have access to a wider selection of mortgage options as you would be eligible for a standard mortgage, rather than a Shared Ownership mortgage. 

Under the new lease, you can staircase by 1% annually or in larger amounts starting from 5%. Under older leases, the minimum is typically 10%.

While there is the obvious cost of the purchase price for the additional shares that you are buying, there are many other costs involved when staircasing in a Shared Ownership home. Generally speaking, we would recommend having around £2,000 saved for the process, however this amount can vary depending on a number of factors:

• You will be required to pay for the surveyor report required to value the property.
• You will need to appoint a solicitor or conveyancer to act on your behalf during the staircasing process.
• You may need to re-mortgage your property to be able to afford the additional shares with mortgage fees ranging from lender to lender.
• Depending on the value of the additional shares that you are buying, you may be required to pay Stamp Duty depending on your initial chosen SDLT option.

If you chose to make a one-off payment when you first bought your home, you won’t have to pay any Stamp Duty at the time of staircasing.

However, if you chose to pay in stages, there will be no Stamp Duty to pay until your owned share reaches 80% and above. If you are staircasing to 80% in your home, you will need to pay Stamp Duty on the transaction that took you over 80% and any further transactions.

Only if you didn’t elect to pay it on the full market value at the outset and you’re staircasing to 80% or more.