Staircasing: own more of your home
Staircasing is the process of buying more shares in your home over a period of time. Aim to staircase up to 100% and own your home outright. Learn more about how to staircase and what the benefits are.
Check your staircasing affordability now
We're working alongside Stairpay to support you along your shared ownership journey.
The free-to-use Stairpay Affordability Calculator will help you to explore how much you could afford to buy and how your rent will change if you buy more shares.
- Get an estimate of your home's current value: Stairpay use the UK Housing Price Index (HPI) to calculate the value of your home, helping you understand how much your shares might be worth today.
- See how your rent might change if you buy more shares: As you staircase, your rent usually goes down. The calculator shows you how your monthly rent could reduce depending on how many extra shares you buy.
- Try out different scenarios to plan what’s affordable for you: Not sure how much to buy? Use the calculators and scenario planners to test different share amounts and see how this affects your costs — helping you plan with confidence.
Remember, rent is reviewed every April. All calculations will be subject to this.
How does staircasing work?
Buying more shares means you’ll increase your investment in your home and pay less rent.
When you own 100%, you’ll no longer pay rent at all.
Five steps to staircasing:
- Step 1 - check your lease and value your home.
- Step 2 - submit your staircasing instruction.
- Step 3 - start the legal process.
- Step 4 - final steps to complete.
- Step 5 - review your new ownership status.
How much is your home worth?
When you buy more shares, you'll buy them at the current market value. You'll find a Stairpay tool at the top of this page to help you understand the current market value of your home.
Stairpay uses the UK Housing Price Index (HPI) to give you an accurate indication of your home's value.
Get mortgage advice
Speak to your mortgage lender or an independent mortgage advisor to determine how many more shares you’re able to buy. Each situation is individual, and we recommend you find someone with particular experience of shared ownership.
Our panel of mortgage advisors have lots of experience in the shared ownership market. They also have unique experience of our developments.
What is Stairpay?
By signing up to Stairpay for free you gain access to tools that allow you to:
- Calculate whether you can staircase.
- Estimate the up-to-date value of your home.
- Plan for your future in staircasing using scenario and budget planners.
- Access third-party support such as mortgage advisors and shared ownership specialist solicitors.
More tools to help you
Equity Planner: plan ahead and explore the potential effects of variable costs such as rent, mortgage and service charges.
Staircasing calculator: Work out what level of staircasing you can afford. Make the best informed decision for your situation.
We'll share basic identity, property, and sale information with Stairpay to enable you to easily sign up and securely validate your account. You can add additional information to your Stairpay account to calculate your affordability more accurately. You can choose to opt out of using Stairpay at any point. You can find more information on how we process your personal data here:
Planning ahead
You may not be able to staircase right now but looking ahead to the future can help you plan to take another step towards owning 100% of your home.
The Equity Planner available through Stairpay helps you visualise your path to your next staircasing purchase and decide whether it's the right decision for you.
By entering information about how much you can save each month, and any expected changes to your income, you can find out when you could staircase, how much it will cost you in total, and how much you could gain from the increasing value of your home.
Check your lease
Most shared ownership leases allow you to buy shares in chunks of 10% or more up to 100% ownership, but not always. If you’re not sure, you can find this information in your lease. You can get a copy of your lease from the land registry.
Consider your costs
You’ll need to pay for your valuation fees, legal fees, any additional mortgage fees and our administration fee. Stamp Duty may also be a factor. Check our Staircasing FAQs for more information.
Start your staircasing instruction
The process will be easier, and quicker, if you make sure you have all the details required ready to submit with your form.
What you do
Have you spoken to your mortgage provider and solicitor? Have you got a valuation and all the details required to start your staircasing instruction?
The independent mortgage advisors on our panel have experience in the shared ownership market. Their knowledge will help to calculate how much you can afford to staircase by, based on an estimated value of your home. Stairpay can also connect you with partner advisors for guidance.
If it's a joint instruction, you’ll need this for both people purchasing more shares.
To complete the process you'll need to appoint a solicitor, ideally with specific knowledge of shared ownership, and make a mortgage application.
What we do
We'll work with your solicitor with the aim to complete the staircasing transaction within three months* of your valuation.
Your submitted instruction will be reviewed upon receipt and we'll discuss your valuation with you.
We may need to carry out anti money laundering checks in addition to those carried out by your solicitor or mortgage advisor. If we do, we'll request copies of bank statements and payslips for three consecutive months.
We'll send an offer based on your instruction and the valuation.
When the offer's agreed the sale will complete and your new ownership status will be updated.
*Subject to individual circumstances. Not all transactions complete within three months of the valuation; some take less than three months and some take more.