As you increase your share of the property, your rent will usually decrease and if you have a mortgage, your mortgage repayments will increase to cover any additional borrowing.
The Staircasing can vary from around four weeks up to three months. If you want to Staircase you’ll need to get your home valued, we will use this valuation to work out the price of the share you wish to purchase.
Things to consider
What costs are involved?
- Your Valuer’s fee
- Mortgage arrangement fees to your lender, if this applies
- Your lender’s valuation fee, if this applies
- Your legal fees
- Our Staircasing administration fee
- The cost of additional share
- If you didn’t pay stamp duty on the full value of your home, you may need to pay extra stamp duty.
We cannot help with questions about stamp duty. Your solicitor will answer these for you. In the case that you cancel your application, or do not complete for any reason, you’ll be required to pay our solicitors’ fees and/or cancellation fees, and our Staircasing fee will not be refundable.
What timescales do I need?
The time people take to buy more shares varies from around four weeks up to three months.
You need to consider the following:
- How soon can the Valuer value your property? (If they are busy, it could take two to three weeks for them to value and write the report on your home)
- How busy your solicitor is and if they are experienced with ‘Staircasing’ purchases
- Your valuation will only be valid for three months from the date of the report. If you have not completed buying the share by this time, you will have to get an updated valuation. We cannot extend your original valuation under any circumstances
- Delays in completing the purchase are normally due to problems arranging the finance or gathering legal documents – three months is usually plenty of time
- If you need to amend the share that you have initially told us you want to buy, and we have already instructed our solicitors, this will cause a delay that may result in you having to update your valuation. It will take us up to 5 working days to process this request to change the share that you will be buying and provide the updated memorandum and the new instruction to our solicitor.
Making changes to your home
You don’t need our permission to decorate or make simple repairs, but you will for anything more significant.
If you want to make changes to your home, please check your lease first. The following changes will always need our permission:
- External work to the property
- Structural work
- Changes to walls, pipework or electrics
- Conservatories or extensions
It’s important that you get our permission before you make changes to your home, as otherwise you could be in breach of your lease.
This may prevent you from being able to sell or secure a mortgage on your home.
To find out more about how to purchase a larger share of your home, take a look at our Guide to Buying More of Your Home.
For further independent information on your rights and obligations, please look at The Leasehold Advisory Service website.