Selling your home

You are able to sell your shared ownership home whenever you wish. This is known as assigning your lease.

When you decide to sell your home you will usually have to give us an opportunity to nominate a buyer. This is called the nomination right and depending on your lease can be for a period of between 4 to 8 weeks from when we receive your request to sell.

Gateway has access to a huge data base of potential buyers for shared ownership and will do our best to find you a buyer as quickly as possible.

If we are not able to find a buyer during the nomination period, you are then free to sell your home on the open market through an estate agent or alternatively you may continue marketing your home through Gateway.

It should be noted that as your property was originally sold under the shared ownership scheme, any potential buyer must still meet the First Steps intermediate housing programme eligibility requirements for existing shared ownership homes.The purchaser must also meet the allocation criteria of Gateway Housing.

Before you instruct us to sell your home, there are a few things that you need to do. The following step by step guide will help you and if you have any other questions please contact the sales team or see the questions and answers section at the end off this guide.

Please contact the sales team to request your resale information pack.

 

Your step by step guide to selling your home.

Step 1.

Arranging a valuation.

The terms of your lease require that you obtain a professional market valuation by an independent expert  valuer. This would usually be a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. You can nominate a valuer of your choice or use one from our panel of surveyors.

We will commission the valuation on your behalf although the full cost of the valuation is your responsibility.

The valuer will send the report and their fee invoice directly to you, unless you tell them otherwise.

The valuation report is valid for 3 months which would normally be sufficient time for you to complete your sale. If for any reason the sale is delayed and completion extends beyond the valuation expiry date then the valuation will need to be extended or renewed. There can be an additional cost to you if this happens.

Please note that you are only allowed under the terms of your lease to sell your property at no more than the valuation although you could accept less if you wanted to.

Step 2.

Arrange a Home Information Pack (HIP).

The Government has introduced Home Information Packs, and all homes up for sale (including shared-ownership properties) must have an HIP.

The HIP provides important information about the property, including local authority searches, water and drainage searches, proof of who owns the property, a sale statement, leasehold information, an energy performance certificate, boundary ownership and any planning permission.

An HIP costs between £250 and £500 and you can arrange one through a solicitor or a specialist HIP provider. You are responsible for paying for your HIP.

Please remember that we cannot begin the process of selling your home until you have got your HIP.

Step 3.

Preparing for marketing.

We will want to present your property to potential buyers in the best way possible by using our web sites and by placing a listing on the First Steps/ Share to Buy web site. To help us with this we would ask that you email us at least one photograph of the outside and one of the inside of your home. The photos have to be taken by an independent person so as to comply with the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991.

If your lease term is less than 80 years you may wish to consider extending it. This will make it more attractive to a buyer and easier to get a mortgage and might even add value to your home. Please contact the sales team to find out more about how to extend your lease.

If there are any minor repairs or decoration that need attending to, you might want to consider carrying this out so that the property is looking its best. If you are not sure whether or what to do our sales team can provide you with expert advice on preparing your property for sale.

Step 4.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC).

By law, you will need to arrange for a domestic energy assessor to provide an Energy Performance Certificate before we can advertise your property.

You do not have to have received your EPC before we start marketing, but we will need proof that you have arranged the EPC.

An EPC is valid for up to 10 years so you should check to see if you already have one. It might also be possible that Gateway has an EPC from when the property was originally built so you should check with us before you order a new one.

You will be able to find an EPC assessor on the internet or in the yellow pages or your valuer may be able to recommend one.

Step 5.

Instruct Gateway.

When you have all the information together outlined in Steps 1 and 2 you need to send this to our sales team so that we can start the marketing on your behalf.

The things that we need you to send us are:

• The valuation report.
• The Energy Performance Certificate.(EPC)
• Your solicitors details.
• The completed instruction form. This is included in your resale information pack.

 

What happens now?

We start the marketing.

On receipt of your instructions we will structure a marketing plan to ensure success when promoting your home to potential buyers. This will entail preparing sales material and advertising your property through the First Steps and Gateway web sites. We will email details of your property to those registering interest with the aim of generating as many people as possible to view your property.

We arrange viewings.

When we receive initial interest from applicants to view your property we carryout an initial telephone interview to establish whether they are likely to be eligible applicants and able to afford to buy your share. If we are satisfied that they are bone fide applicants who will benefit from this shared ownership scheme we will put them in touch with you to arrange a viewing.

We feel that the best way to arrange viewings is for you to show people your home as you can then explain the virtues of living there with first hand knowledge of the property and surrounding neighbourhood.

For your personal safety we fully recommend that if possible you have someone with you when applicants come to view. Never let people into your home without an appointment.

If you are concerned about this someone from our sales team will be able to help.

We interview all applicants.

Once potential buyers have expressed an interest in buying your home, we will invite them in to our offices for an interview. At the same time we will request that they undergo a financial check with one of our panel independent financial advisors. This is called an HCA shared ownership affordability assessment.

This will give us the opportunity to assess their applications and their financial position so that we can be sure that they can afford to buy your home.

All potential buyers must attend this interview otherwise we may not be able to offer them the opportunity to buy.

We are then able to nominate you a buyer using our resale allocation policy and procedure. When you have accepted our nominee we will issue an offer to the buyer giving them 5 working days to confirm their intention to proceed and provide us with details of their solicitors.

A reserve list of buyers will be held in the event the nominated buyer decides not to proceed before exchange of contracts.

We instruct solicitors.

When we have received the buyers soliciotrs details we will issue instructions to all parties to the sale with an aim of exchanging contracts within approximately 4 weeks.

From then on it is up to you to keep in touch with your solicitors and the buyer to ensure that the sale moves forward without too many delays. Gateway will monitor the progress and resolve any issues that may occur.

Your solicitors will send their management enquiries  to Gateway which we will respond to within 10 working days. We charge an administration fee for these enquiries.

Your solicitor will let you know when the buyer is ready to exchange contracts, following which a date will be set for completion of your sale.