If your home is an apartment
Like all owners of an apartment, you will still pay your service charge and management charges including the ground rent. You will still be covered under the block’s buildings insurance policy.
In certain circumstances (an individual headlease or superior lease, where Peabody are not freeholders or managing agent), Peabody may transfer the headlease or superior lease to you. Your solicitor will deal with the transfer, which will take place alongside the Staircasing.
If your home is a house
If you own a house, the freehold can be transferred to you when you have Staircased to 100%. Your solicitor will need to serve notice to Peabody requesting the freehold of the property be transferred to
you. There is no charge for this transfer, but you will have to pay your legal costs.
On completion of the transfer, you will no longer be charged for buildings insurance by Peabody and you will need to have your own policy in place. In some cases, you may still have to pay an estate management charge if you live on an estate and are responsible for some of the communal costs. This will be stated in your lease if it’s applicable.
Selling on the open market
Now you own 100% of your property outright, you can sell it on the open market using an estate agent of your choice. In some cases, your lease may restrict you from selling your property for three months following final Staircasing.
Once you have found a buyer for your property, your solicitors will contact our Homeownership Approvals Team with any enquiries from the buyer’s solicitor.
Case Study: Friends staircase their way to full homeownership in London
After years of renting in London, Aroma wanted to own her home but couldn’t afford to buy outright. Through Shared Ownership with Peabody New Homes, she purchased a 30% share of a three-bedroom apartment in Queensbury.
Aroma saw Shared Ownership as a smart way to build equity, encouraging others to “buy as much as you can, when you can.” Two years later, when her friend Fatima moved in, they combined incomes and staircased to 100% ownership, splitting the home equally.
Now fully owning their flat through Staircasing, Aroma and Fatima turned renting struggles into lasting homeownership and financial freedom.
