Using flexible tenure to sustain communities.

The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust operates a shared ownership scheme which allows owners to change the percentage of property ownership if their personal finances improve or worsen. This paper, by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, explores how this approach has worked in practice, particularly in the context of preventing mortgage repossessions.

Flexible tenure allows:

• the right to ‘staircase up’ by buying more shares in an owned property
• those struggling with mortgage repayments to ‘staircase down’ and reduce their share. 
• the release of equity to pay for care or major repairs.

The summary concludes that much more could be done by housing associations to use flexible tenure to reduce repossessions.

Available in electronic format only.