As a Great Places customer you may be able to buy your home.
Finding out the approximate value of your home is an important first step.
Zoopla.co.uk provides a free tool to see the kind of price you could expect to pay for your property – please remember, prices can change and go both up or down.
Buying your own home is a big step and something to be considered carefully.
You will need to think about the value and cost of your home and how this will affect your long-term plans and financial stability. How will you fund the purchase? What are your reasons for buying? How will you pay for ongoing repairs and maintenance?
Most people use a mortgage (a loan from a bank or building society) to pay for their home.
There are many different kinds to choose from and you should shop around to get the best deal for you. An independent financial adviser can help you consider all the options.
If you take out a mortgage and you cannot keep up the repayments, your home may be repossessed and you could be homeless.
If this happens you will not be entitled to emergency housing and will be considered a low priority on a housing association or local authority waiting list. As an owner-occupier you will not be able to claim Housing Benefit towards the cost of mortgage payments.
Service charges are an extra cost collected to cover things like maintaining communal areas around your property.
If you own a property it may be that you need to pay these so it is important to check what they are (and if they might go up) before you buy. Great Places will let you know if you could be liable for service charges when you make your application to purchase your home.
If you choose to sell the property then any future owners will also have to pay the service charge.
As a homeowner you will be responsible for any repairs and maintenance, so if your boiler breaks you will have to fix or replace it. If you are buying a flat you will be responsible for any internal repairs. External repairs for flats are normally covered by your service charge but check this if you are unsure.
Once you have bought your home you can sell it whenever you like. It’s worth bearing in mind that if you sell within five years of buying there are some conditions:
You will have to repay all or some of any discount you received on the price you paid
The way this repayment is calculated is by looking at the discount as a percentage of the current market value. If your property has gone up in value since you bought it, this repayment might be larger than the discount you received.
You must give Great Places first refusal
If you wish to sell the property within five years of buying, you must offer it back to Great Places first. If we agree to buy it we will of course pay the full value of the property.
