Selling your home

If you want to sell your home there are procedures you need to follow, depending on whether you bought through the shared ownership or home equity scheme, right-to-buy, right-to acquire or voluntary purchase grant.

Shared ownership and home equity leaseholders
Please first write to the marketing team, as there may be a clause in your lease which allows us to name a buyer who meets the shared ownership conditions. Most leases give us eight or 12 weeks to find a buyer. If we cannot find someone within that time, you can seek a buyer your self.

You must sell your home at the open market value. Your share of the sale price is the same as your percentage share of your home - so if you own 50% you collect 50% from the sale - less costs. We keep our share of the lease, until it is bought by the leaseholder.

Right-to-buy, right-to-acquire and voluntary purchase grant leaseholders
When you buy under one of these schemes you receive a discount on the purchase price. If you sell within three years of the date you bought your home, you are obliged by law to pay back all or part of the discount - all of it if you sell in the first year, one third in the second year and one third if you sell within three years.

If you sell after three three years you do not have to pay back any discount. If you are delayed in selling your home, tell us as soon as possible and we will recalculate the time since you bought and adjust the amount you need to repay accordingly. 

The sale
For sale or to let signs can only be displayed with our permission. We will not unreasonably withhold permission, but the sign must not be attached to the building and it must be removed after the sale has been completed.

Your solicitor will need information from CBHA before the sale. It will take some time to collect this, so you should ask your solicitor to write to us as early as possible. Your solicitor will need to ask the following questions:

• are there any service charges due which have not yet been billed for
• do you contribute to a service charge sinking fund
• are there any credits to be passed back to you for the previous years' accounts

Dividing up any service charges is your solicitor's responsibility. Once the sale has gone through, your solicitor must send us the notice of assignment or transfer - confirming who has bought the lease - within one month. We cannot amend our records until we receive this and you must pay a fee to register the notice.