By Alison, SHAC Campaigner
Twice a year, the estate agent subsidiaries of the big London housing associations assemble at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster for the London Home Show.
Mortgage providers, conveyancing solicitors, and related service providers also take stalls. It’s a one stop shop for Shared Ownership (SO) flats.
The problem is, SO in neither shared nor ownership. The tenant is responsible for 100% of the costs of the maintenance of their properties, and also, through service charges, the cost of maintaining the building and the area around it.
Service charging is entirely unregulated and escalates quickly. There is no tenure in law that is called ‘shared ownership’ – that is actually a marketing term. Legally, all you have is an assured tenancy, which means that if you get into just eight weeks arrears with rent and / or service charge, the landlord can repossess the entire property and, crucially, not give you back the money you paid for your share (1).
It is sold as an affordable way to get a foot on the property ladder, and with an option for ‘staircaising’, ie. increasing the share of the property that you theoretically own until it reaches 100%. But when rent rises above inflation, service charges increase exponentially, and wages do not keep pace with property prices, it’s no wonder that less than 3% of tenants ever ‘staircase’ to 100% (2).
The London Home Show Instagram
So, a few concerned housing activists from SHAC went along to the London Home Show on Saturday 26 April 2025, armed with information leaflets for people attending the show. We knew from experience that the marketing people inside – with their bright smiles and their glossy brochures – give information on SO that is so riddled with inaccuracies, omissions, and outright lies, that their conduct constitutes deliberate mis-selling.
By contrast, we had more details and sources for future research, so that anyone thinking about buying SO would know where get accurate, independent, impartial information. We didn’t have banners or placards or megaphones. But what we did have, in abundance, were facts.
It was a lovely, sunny day, and the show was not quite as well-attended as it was the last time there was a demo outside it, in 2022. What we did find, though, was that everyone we spoke to already knew about the problems with SO. Awareness of the problematic nature of the tenure is high, although not everyone knew the details.
Many people were going along to the show out of curiosity, where previously they were going along with the express intention of finding a home. A lot of people were interested in SO only because they viewed it as better than private renting – a low bar if ever there was one – but still were not convinced that it was right for them.
It’s astonishing that the Mayor of London chooses to promote SO as a part of his affordable housing plan, when the Housing Select Committee has found that the scheme is failing to deliver on any of its promises (3).
It is astonishing that Labour spent fourteen years in opposition, becoming increasingly aware through their constituents’ complaints that SO is a problem and the landlords running the schemes are out of control, and yet still have no plan to reform it. But as people are gradually turning away from the tenure, and more and more SO homes go unsold (4), sooner or later something will have to give.
Sources:
(1) Shared Ownership Resources – Shared Ownership – Is It Really Ownership?
(2) SORESEI Blog – Shared Ownership Market Review 2020
(3) Parliament – Shared Ownership is Failing to Deliver an Affordable Route to Homeownership Say MPs
(4) Inside Housing Third Quarter Turnover at L&Q – But Hundreds of Shared Ownership Homes Remain Unsold
3 May 2025
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Thanks for this brilliant post. It is both succinct and useful in explaining the shared ownership con to fellow tenants.