FairShare is a shared ownership scheme for Northern Ireland. FairShare allows homebuyers who cannot afford to buy a property outright, to buy a share of a new-build property directly from a housing association and pay rent on the rest.
Apex, Clanmil and Choice housing associations offer a range of affordable, high-quality new-build properties for sale through the FairShare shared ownership scheme. FairShare homebuyers must be able to purchase a minimum 50% starter share and pay rent on the remaining share. Once purchased homebuyers have the option to buy further shares of their home as and when they can afford to – this is called staircasing. See the ‘FairShare guide to staircasing’ with details of help towards legal and valuation costs.
Keeping costs to a minimum
Like other shared ownership schemes your FairShare scheme provider will charge you rent on the share purchased by them. The good news is that FairShare rents are kept to a minimum for the first four years to help you adjust to the costs of home ownership. And, there are no fees or charges associated with making an application to FairShare.
Shared ownership mortgages for FairShare
National lenders Halifax, Nationwide and Santander have signed up to the FairShare shared ownership scheme and buyers will be able to access the full range of shared ownership mortgage products provided by these lenders. If you need any assistance with accessing information on these, please contact FairShare.
Properties available to buy with FairShare
Northern Ireland housing associations publish listings of all shared ownership properties for sale with FairShare on the FairShare website. All homes listed on the FairShare website are new-build properties which have been built by housing associations, and/or their subsidiary companies or by private developers, all of whom are approved by FairShare.
FairShare for other properties
If you would like to take advantage of the FairShare scheme to buy a new-build property which is not listed on the FairShare website, you will need to contact FairShare with full details of the property that you would like to buy. We will try to help where possible but we will need to carry out an assessment of the property first to see if it meets the scheme criteria.