It has long been part of public policy to encourage home ownership and a number of schemes help make home buying more affordable and accessible. Today “affordable” routes into home ownership are more diverse and complex than ever.

This is a specialist area of property law. bpl have extensive experience on all types of these transactions, including acting for Housing Associations and Developers which provides us with a unique insight into this challenging area of modern conveyancing.

The “right to buy” has been available to local authority tenants since 1980 but can be complicated by restrictions upon sale and repayable discounts.

Shared ownership leases are available to those such as key sector workers buying in the private sector as well as from Housing Associations. They are also complicated and contain specialist clauses to protect the buyer's lender.

Shared Equity is a relatively new arrangement available to those such as key sector workers buying in the private sector as well as from Housing Associations. Equity loans and shared equity agreements are novel and very complicated.

Many former Local Authority homes were built using non traditional materials or building techniques.
Although many such buildings are perfectly acceptable to a lender as security some types are not. Some buildings or building types have been declared to be defective by the government or by individual Local Authorities.
Examples of non traditional building types include:  Cornish Unit, Unity, Airey, Schindler and Hawksley, Reema Hollow Panel and Woolaway
Such defective buildings can be repaired and improved to a standard where they become acceptable as mortgage security to a wide group of lenders, however the initial funding of the purchase and improvement of these buildings is a specialist area. Again bpl has extensive experience in this unusual area.