Your pathway from renting to home ownership
Our modern homes across the UK are designed to be safe and energy efficient. In fact, they’re of such a high quality that many of our customers decide they’d like to buy their Lloyds Living home further down the line. That’s why we offer a shared ownership scheme which we call Pathways.
How does Pathways work?
We understand that it can be hard to take your first step on the property ladder and we’re dedicated to helping you buy your own home. That’s where Pathways comes in.
Pathways offers the opportunity to rent one of our shared ownership homes for as long as you wish, we call it the “try before you buy” of home ownership. If you decide you’d like to buy your home later on, you can do so through shared ownership. In most cases, you’ll only need a 5% deposit of the share you’re buying, which makes it a flexible and affordable way to become a homeowner.
Eligibility for Pathways
Lloyds Living has homes in multiple locations all around the UK and many of them are on offer under our Pathways scheme. There are only two requirements:
- You don’t own another property
- You have the right to live in the UK
The buying process
Like the idea of owning your own home through Pathways? Here’s the buying process from start to finish:
- We’ll arrange for an independent mortgage advisor to contact you. They’ll do some financial checks and can help you to choose a mortgage.
- You’ll need a solicitor to deal with the legal side. It’s best to use a company that has experience of shared ownership. We can help you find one from our solicitors’ panel if you like.
- Once your solicitor is holding your mortgage offer and signed contract, you’ll need to pay your deposit (usually 5% of the price of the share of the home you’re buying).
- It’s then time to exchange contracts. This takes about a month and means that you’re committed to buying the property and we’re committed to selling it to you.
- The final step is completion, which should happen within ten days of the contracts being exchanged.
- Congratulations! You’re now a homeowner.
How does shared ownership work?
Shared ownership is designed to make buying a home a smooth process, as it allows you to buy your home in stages. You buy a share of your home with a mortgage and rent is charged on the rest. You can buy between 25% and 75% of the home and keep increasing that share until you own your home outright.
How much does
shared ownership cost?
The cost of buying a home through shared ownership depends on the value of the property. Here’s an estimate to give you an idea of the costs involved:
Cost of home
(full market value) =
£300,000
Your 40%
share =
£120,000
Mortgage required (based on a 95% loan to value) =
£114,000
Your deposit
(minimum 5%) =
£6,000
Increasing your share in the future
Once you’ve bought your first share in your home, you can then choose to buy more equity. This is known as ‘staircasing’.
Staircasing allows you to buy all the shares and own your home outright. This means that you won’t pay rent anymore, just your mortgage payments.
When you buy the final share of your home, we’ll transfer the freehold to you. You’ll need a solicitor to request this from us, who will charge a fee. You’ll also need to arrange your own building insurance, as this will no longer be provided by us.
If you’re buying an apartment, you’ll have to keep paying your service charge. If building insurance is part of your service charge, this will remain the same and you won’t need to get your own cover.
As you buy more shares, your mortgage payments will go up but the rent you pay will go down. Once you own all of the shares, you just pay your mortgage without any rent.
Have a
question?
If you have a question about our Pathways scheme, take a look at our Pathways FAQs section. If you’d like to talk to a member of our team, email us at Pathways@LloydsLiving.co.uk and let us know how we can help.