Sell your home
If you’d like to sell your home, we have to go through four stages. Here's how it works
If you’d like to sell your home, we have to go through four stages. Here's how it works
In your lease it says we have the right to sell your home to another shared owner. But we believe in giving you a choice. So you’ve got two options:
If you want to sell 100% of your home, we’ll advertise it for two weeks on the Help to Buy website. And if it doesn’t attract any potential buyers, you can advertise it on the open market with an estate agent (and pay their fees). If we find a buyer, our fees could be up to 2% of sale price.
We’ll advertise your share or 100% of your home for eight weeks and tell you at the end if we’ve found a buyer. And if it doesn’t attract any potential buyers, you can advertise your share or the whole home on the open market with an estate agent (and pay their fees). If we find a buyer, our fees could be up to 2% of sale price
Things to think about before you choose:
To make sure the right people have the right opportunities, some shared ownership homes have restrictions on how much of the home you can buy and who can own it (things like: you can only buy a maximum of 80% from us. Or, it can be only sold to local people, for example)
If you think this might apply to your home, please get in touch with us right away
Please check your lease for any restrictions before your home goes on the market
To find how much your home is worth you need to arrange a valuation.
The valuation must be done by a RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) qualified surveyor. We can’t use a ‘mortgage’ valuation or 'estate agents' valuation
You’ll need to pay for it to be done
It will be valid for three months (if the sale doesn’t go through in this time you’ll need to get a more up-to-date valuation)
You can normally get your valuation updated at a cut price, as the surveyor won’t have to visit again.
To make it easier for you, here are a list of local valuers that are RICS qualified. You’re free to find another RICS valuer if you’d prefer.
All areas - Bartley West Surveyors | 02380 861123
Portsmouth area - Chandler Hawkins | 02392 820420
Southampton area - Now Survey | 02380 224189
Aldershot area - Cresswell Associates | 01252 515551
Woking/Guildford area - Frazers Surveyors Ltd | 01483 730909
If you still want to go ahead after you’ve received your valuation, you need to fill in this agreement form and send us:
A copy of the valuation report
An EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) for your home. You can find that out here
Some photos of your home (in JPEG format please)
Once we have all of these, we’ll have your home on the market within 48 hours
We use an outside company to market your home
They’ll be in touch to arrange viewings
The solicitors will manage the process until it’s time for you to move out
Once you’ve paid for the legal pack, it’s up to your solicitor to ask our solicitor for it
We allow up to 10 working days for our solicitor to prepare the legal pack and send it to yours
On average, selling your home takes between three to five months (but this isn’t guaranteed)
Your solicitor will also be responsible for collecting a share of the service charge from the new owners. This will cover their share of the rent and service charge for the month when completion takes place
We strongly recommend you use a solicitor that’s used to dealing with shared ownership leases and customer contracts. Things often take longer if you use a solicitor who doesn’t have experience in shared ownership deals
You will be responsible for paying VIVID’s legal fees. A breakdown of fees will provided to your solicitor once your sale has been instructed.
Abels Solicitors - Southampton | 02380 220317
Eric Robinson Solicitors - Bitterne | 02380 425000
Galloway Hughes Solicitors - Surrey | 01372 237070
Jasper Vincent Solicitors - Fareham | 01329 285341
On average, a sale takes between three and five months. But it’s difficult to put an exact time on it because we don’t have control over lots of things (including how long it takes to find a buyer and how long the buyer takes to find a mortgage offer etc).
But we can promise you:
When we’re marketing the homes
Once you send us all the information we need (including the agreement form, valuation, EPC, photos) we’ll get it on the market within 48 hours.
When our solicitors are working on it
It doesn’t matter if you sell through us or an estate agent, it’s up to you to pay for the valuation, legal pack, selling fee and solicitors costs.
The legal pack will include: