4. Managing Shared Ownership

A key question to be addressed by a housing organisation with a continuing interest (including central government grant) in a property is how to manage that property in the future. There are well-defined techniques for managing social rented housing, which have developed over the last century. Some social housing providers also had a stock of (non-shared ownership) long leasehold properties, the management of which they might have taken on, for example, following the transfer from local authorities after the sitting tenant had exercised their right to buy. However, shared ownership is a rather different phenomenon from social rented housing and other long leaseholds because of its in-betweenness, adding a further level of complexity. A key question for providers of shared ownership housing is how they should treat shared owners—are they akin to long leaseholders or social renters?