What you own, and what you do not
Under a Scottish Government shared equity scheme you own the home outright in the everyday sense — you live there, you maintain it, you are responsible for it. What sits alongside that is a security registered against the title recording the percentage share held by Scottish Ministers.
That percentage is the number that matters. It does not change on its own with house prices. When you sell, you repay that same percentage of the sale price, whether the property has risen or fallen in value. A 20% share stays 20% until you take steps to change it.
Remortgaging a shared equity property
Remortgaging is possible, but the pool of lenders is smaller than for an ordinary property, and that is the single biggest practical issue. Some lenders decline shared equity outright. Others accept it but apply their own rules on the maximum loan to value, or on how the government share is treated in the affordability calculation.
The administering agent normally has to be involved, because the existing security has to be dealt with and re-recorded against the new mortgage. That adds time to a remortgage rather than complexity you need to manage yourself, but it is worth starting earlier than you would for a standard rate switch.
Raising additional borrowing on top is a separate question again and is generally more restricted, because it changes the balance between what you owe and the share held by Ministers. It is not automatically refused, but it is not a given either.
Increasing your share
Most Scottish Government shared equity arrangements allow you to buy a further tranche of the property, which reduces the percentage held by Ministers. The price of the additional share is based on a valuation at the time, not on what the property was worth when you bought it — so in a rising market increasing your share costs more the longer you leave it, and in a falling market it costs less.
Funding it usually means either savings or additional mortgage borrowing, which brings you back to the lender question above. The administering agent handles the process and will confirm the valuation basis and any minimum tranche size, so they are the first call rather than your lender.
Selling a shared equity home
- Tell the agent first — You must contact the scheme administering agent before you market the property. This is not a formality; the sale process runs through them.
- A Home Report as normal — The property is then marketed on the open market in the usual Scottish way.
- Ministers are repaid a percentage — You repay the current percentage share held by Scottish Ministers, calculated on the final selling price — more in cash terms if the property has gained, less if it has fallen.
- Offers below 95% need permission — If you want to accept an offer below 95% of the market value, you need permission from Scottish Ministers before accepting it.
- You carry the costs — You are responsible for the costs of the sale, including those incurred by the agent and by Scottish Ministers.
The golden share
Some properties bought through Open Market Shared Equity or LIFT carry what is called a golden share. In broad terms it restricts who the property can subsequently be sold to, so that it remains available to the kind of buyer the scheme was designed to help.
Whether a golden share applies is specific to the property and the scheme it was bought under, and it can materially affect both how long a sale takes and who can buy. It is not something to establish from a general guide — the administering agent will confirm whether one is registered against your home.
Where we can help, and where we cannot
The scheme side — increasing your share, permission to sell, whether a golden share applies — sits with the administering agent, and we would point you to them rather than guess. What we can do is the mortgage: establishing which lenders will consider a shared equity property at your loan to value, what a remortgage would actually cost once fees are counted, and whether borrowing to increase your share stacks up against leaving it where it is.
If you are approaching the end of a fixed rate on a shared equity home, starting that conversation earlier than usual is sensible, simply because there are fewer lenders to work through.