Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Accepted in Part
Review CORE data to assess shared ownership loss and publish replacement plan.
Recommendation
The Government must urgently review data it has from the CORE platform regarding the new question on whether staircasing transactions are part of a ‘back-to-back’ sale for 2023–2024, from which it must make an assessment of the extent to which shared ownership properties are being lost to the open market. The Government must then design and publish a plan on how it intends to replace all properties transferred to the open market from sales in the current and future iterations of the Affordable Homes Programme. (Paragraph 69) 40 Shared Ownership
Government Response Summary
The government commits to reviewing all relevant data on staircasing transactions once the 2023-24 reporting year concludes, but rejects the need to design and publish a plan for replacing homes lost to the open market, citing existing recycling provisions for grant funding.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government
Accepted in Part
25. We will review all data collected through CORE on staircasing transactions, including back-to-back staircasing transactions, once the reporting year for 2023-24 has concluded. We will also continue to explore other options to improve our information on rates of staircasing. 26. Once final (100%) staircasing has been achieved, the property is no longer considered to be a shared ownership home. This applies regardless of whether the shared owner has engaged in back-to-back staircasing to sell on the open market, or whether the shared owner has engaged in final staircasing and continues to occupy the home. As noted by the Committee, the Government publishes data on the number of final staircasing transactions each year, and these can be compared against publicly available data on the number of new shared ownership homes delivered annually. 27. As highlighted in Baroness Penn’s letter to the Committee of 24 January 2024, these datasets show that the number of new shared ownership homes delivered has exceeded the number of existing shared ownership homes where final staircasing has been achieved in recent years. This has resulted in an increase to the number of low-cost home ownership homes (of which shared ownership is by far the largest component) owned by private registered providers. 28. The Government has also put provisions in place to ensure that where staircasing occurs, including final staircasing, it can be used to generate further benefits. For example, when a shared owner engages in staircasing, registered providers are required to ‘recycle’ a proportionate amount of the original grant funding that was used to develop or acquire the home. This grant can then be used for a series of permitted purposes, including the delivery of new shared ownership homes. 29. Based on the operation of the scheme, current levels of delivery, and existing recycling requirements, the Government does not believe the development and publication of a plan on how to replace shared ownerships homes where final staircasing has been achieved to be necessary.