Shared ownership – new code launched

I’m afraid that I am, and have been for the last 30 years (since I came across it), a shared ownership sceptic.  With my colleagues, I have written fairly extensively about it in England, although have moved on since around 2019.  You can find our policy report, following research funded by the Leverhulme Trust, here.  I know that there have been some improvements sought to be made to the “product” since then, but everything I read about it suggests that the issues remain the same (see, for example, here and here and here).  Shared ownership is a “product”* (see end) which is also backed by the Welsh Government and so the announcement of a Shared Ownership Code, following consultation and pilot projects, is important to its ongoing development.  However, the Code does not mention Wales or Welsh approaches to shared ownership, only English regulations and .  Was that an oversight?  Are they intending to do work separately in Wales?

The Code is the brainchild of the Shared Ownership Council, which itself is a product of an industry recognition of weaknesses in the marketing and operation of shared ownership (I’d say “front-to-back”).  It comes from work done by Lloyds Bank, I think.  There are no Welsh members of the Council’s board as far as I can see.

It is important to note that the Code is voluntary, and organisations will have to sign up to it – one can imagine that it will be de rigueur to sign up to it as it develops and the industry itself seeks to rehabilitate the “product”.  One of the central issues lies with how shared ownership is sold, and the Code requires its signatories to provide as much up front information as they should in as transparent a way as they should be doing; charging fees that are reasonable; a defects period for new builds of 12 months; dealing properly and appropriately and sensitively with financial hardship (although it does not require signatories to allow for downward staircasing).  In particular, on the hardship issue:

Providers must not seek possession where a reasonable alternative exists. Where possession is unavoidable, the decision must be taken at an appropriately senior level within the organisation, and the provider must inform the lender of the intended action at least 28 days before serving notice.

Shared ownership leases are outside the provisions of Renting Homes (Sch 2, para 8) (for the previous, frankly awful, position, see here), although there are other legal complications of shared ownership leases which are being ironed out.

Anyway, we should wait and see how far this initiative will have an impact on Welsh shared ownership.  In the meantime, my scepticism remains intact.