ARK’s Aide Memoire for the Affordable Homes Programme 2021 to 2026

By Chris Seeley · 21 September 2020

We recently produced guidance for our own team responding to the publication on the 10 September from Homes England relating to funding for the 21/26 programme and we are pleased to share that with other interested parties.

There is some interesting debate emerging! In terms of routes to funding there is an extension of the Strategic Partnership arrangements for those able to develop at scale and pace and a Continuous Market Engagement route for those not able to agree a strategic role. The risk in the CME route is that it will only be available for as long as the funds are available. However for many small and medium sized programmes CME will be the route to go down. Homes England teams are meeting providers between now and November to discuss routes to funding.

An announcement of the outcome of the Government’s consultation regarding Shared Ownership (Making Shared Ownership Affordable) was published in 28 August and updated on 8 September. This document sets out the Governments ongoing ambition for customers to buy 10% shared, to staircase in 1% tranches and for RP’s to maintain their homes for 10 Years and has provoked much reaction from the sector as discussed in the 11 September edition of Inside Housing. However checks in the Capital Funding Guide show no changes regarding that provision. There are though a number of technical changes relating to Mortgagee in Possession and other clauses. We understand that Home England is having an ongoing discussion regarding the 10% initial tranche model and do expect that the guidance will be changed.

But, and we think this point is being overlooked in the debate, the Right to Shared Ownership, which in summary will apply to all grant funded, rented homes, with some specific exemptions allows tenants to buy between 10% and 75% of their homes value. That affects your approach to modelling your rented schemes!

In addition Social Homebuy allows tenants who qualify for the Right To Acquire (and some tenants who are not eligible for RTA) but cannot afford to buy the full value of their home to take a proportionate discount on the purchase on an initial tranche of between 25% and 75% of their home.

There will, no doubt, be much further debate and discussion particularly around the rent / SO split of the programme, levelling up and regional disparities and we really need to see the detail of announcements but we hope this briefing is helpful. If you want to know more about our team of expert development, sales and marketing practitioners please ask our Director Chris Seeley and he will be pleased to tell you more.

To read more on the Affordable Homes Programme 2021 to 2026, click here.