[Mickey's Magic]

We bought our first house on Shared Ownership back in 2013. We had a good experience when living in the property which was just the same as any other new build property of the site we were on. It helped to get on the housing ladder with a decent house and get a mortgage too (you still pay rent for the % you don't own)

One thing to remember is because the house is shared ownership you will be purchasing it as leasehold and there will be a number of restrictions and covenants added to the lease. You will also need to ask the Freeholder (generally a housing association) for permission to make any changes to the property.

The negatives we experienced were when we came to sell it, firstly the HA were difficult when it came to agreeing an asking price for the property and we had to really push for the price we wanted to list the house as. Secondly there were a lot of extra fees associated with the sale that we were left to pick the bill up for. We had to pay the HA legal fees for the purchase which added nearly another £1k in fees plus a fee to the HA themselves to provide information to the buyers solicitor.

Overall it got us on the housing ladder in a nice house but I can see where you could possibly get caught out and either left stuck in the property or with large fees to leave.