Homeownership

If you're an RHP leaseholder and you own 100% of your property, you can sell your property in the usual way, via an agent, on the open market.

When you have a buyer, your solicitor will request a Sales Pack from us, also known as a Leasehold Management Pack. This pack contains important documents relating to your property, such as service charge accounts and the buildings insurance certificate. It also supplies the answers to standard leasehold enquires.

The charge for this is £252 (including VAT). You can make the payment to us, or your solicitor will make the payment to us, on your behalf. 

Payments for Sales Packs should be made by bank transfer using the following details:

• Lloyds Bank
• Account number: 10864568
• Sort code: 30-80-12

Please use your RHP account number as the payment reference (account number SP i.e. D12345678SP)

Once payment has been received, we’ll aim to issue the solicitors pack within five working days.

Please note, you must also email [email protected] to request this pack and provide your solicitor’s details for us to send the pack to.

If you are an RHP shared owner, the process for selling your property is a bit different, please take a look at the Shared Ownership FAQs below.   

If you’re an RHP leaseholder, you may need, or want, to extend your lease.

A lease with a term of 80 years or less may affect the value of your home, make it difficult to sell or re-mortgage. You should also consider that the cost of extending a lease below 81 years is usually more expensive.

We’ll extend your lease by a further 90 years. For example, if your lease has 80 years remaining, the extension will give you a lease of 170 years.

As a leaseholder (rather than a shared owner), you have a statutory right to extend your lease, provided you meet the relevant criteria. If you are a shared owner, you don’t have a statutory right, but we are still here to help you. 

To save you time, our payment details for paying for your valuation are as follows:

• Lloyds Bank
• Account number: 10863068
• Sort code: 30-80-12

Please use your RHP property address as the payment reference.  

You'll need to let us know why you'd like to vary your lease. We'll review your request and if we agree to a variation, you'll need to instruct a solicitor and pay our legal fees. 

Contact the Homeowner Team at [email protected] if you’d like to talk about lease variations in further detail.

You can find your buildings insurance document in the link below. 

Subletting is when you don't live in your property, but you rent this out to another person.  RHP only allows leaseholders to sublet their properties. 

If you do want to sublet your home, you'll need to contact us at [email protected] to get permission from our Homeowner Team.  You'll also need to provide us with your correspondence address and give us details of any Managing Agent acting on your behalf.  Leaseholders must take full responsibility for their tenants.  RHP will only communicate with the leaseholder or the named managing agent.

We don't allow our customers with tenancy agreements or shared ownership leases to sublet their property. The terms and conditions of these tenancy agreement and leases say your RHP property needs to be your main and principle home.

Shared Ownership is a simple and affordable way to get a home of your own.

We build amazing new homes in great locations. You buy a share in the home that's affordable to you and pay a rent to us (alongside a monthly service charge) on the rest.

The good news is the mortgage and rent combined is usually less than the cost of buying outright or renting a similar home – and it’s yours to decorate and live in as you wish. The other good bit about buying a share is getting a mortgage should be a bit easier - you’ll just need the deposit on the share, not the full value, and your mortgage will be smaller than trying to buy outright. 

You can buy more shares as and when you can afford it until you reach 100% ownership. 

If you’d like more information on newbuild shared ownership homes, please email [email protected] 

If you're an RHP shared owner, the process for selling your property is different, and there are certain things your lease says you must do, like get your property valued by a qualified surveyor.

You can buy more shares as and when you can afford it until you reach 100% ownership. Buying more shares in your shared ownership home is called 'staircasing'. 

To start this process, please email [email protected].

The services you receive vary according to where you live and the type of property you have. For example, if you live in a flat on an estate, you’ll receive more services than if you lived in a flat in a street property.

Your service charge is your share of what it costs RHP to provide these services. The services that apply to your home are shown on your service charge statement. 

When you are notified of your service charges, you will be sent instructions of how to pay them by post or email. Direct debit is our preferred option and this can be set up over the phone by calling the Homeowner Team on 0800 0322 433, selecting option 4 and then option 3.

We would aim to resolve all your queries regarding the accuracy of the charges and we would more than happy to provide the evidence of the expenditure to back up the charges for your scheme. If you are unhappy with your service charges, please raise this directly with our Homeowner Team via [email protected].

However, if you still feel the charges are unreasonable you have the right to go to a First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) if you think the charges we are making or intending to make are unreasonable, or if works have not been carried out to a reasonable standard. The tribunal will look at both sides of the argument and then rule on what is a fair charge to make under the circumstances. If you are dissatisfied with their decision, you can appeal to the Lands Tribunal. You will usually have to pay a fee of up to £500 for this service.

Before taking any action, we recommend that you seek independent legal advice or speak to the Leasehold Advisory Service. 

The Right to Buy and Right to Acquire schemes are government-funded schemes that allow eligible tenants the opportunity to purchase their homes at a reduced cost. For both schemes, you must have held a qualifying tenancy with us or another provider for at least three years.

As we are a housing association, we can only offer the Right to Buy to tenants who held a tenancy from Richmond Council as part of the stock transfer that created RHP in the year 2000. These applications are considered under the ‘preserved right to buy’.

From 21 November 2024, the maximum discount is £16,000 off the market value of your home.

To apply, please complete this application form. The form must be signed with a physical wet signature - not an e-signature - and returned to us by a registered tenant and not a family member.

Applying with household members

You can purchase your home with up to three members of your current household. You must provide evidence that they’ve lived at your address for at least 12 months before applying. Acceptable documents include:

• Voter registration letters from the council
• Council tax bills
• Official letters from the DWP, NHS, or any government body
• Driver’s license
• Payslips with your address (please redact confidential information)
• Utility bills.

Important: The application form is a legal document. Any alterations made must be initialled by all applicants. Once completed, you can email your application to [email protected], or return to 8 Waldegrave Road, Teddington, TW11 8GT, marked for the attention of the homeowner team. If you have any questions on the process, the homeowner team are here to support you via [email protected] or by calling 0800 032 2433 and selecting option 4 then option 3.

We require a copy of the death certificate (this can be emailed) and proof of the Executor of the Will/ Grant of Probate so that we know who we can discuss the property with moving forward. If you’re waiting for probate and there was no Will then just let us know.

Services charges are apportioned to the property and not individual owners. As the property continues to receive services even though there may be no one living there, service charges are still charged in full when a leaseholder dies.

If you’re unable to cover these charges until the property is sold then we are happy to support you in this. Please contact us at [email protected] or call 0800 032 2433, select option 4 then option 3 and ask that we put a note on the service charge account.

Please note, this can only be done after receipt of the death certificate.

You find further information on selling your property in our Resales Guide. 

If you are taking over ownership of the property you should engage a solicitor to handle this transfer for you, and ensure that you are made aware of the terms of the lease.  They will need to serve us with a ‘Notice of Transfer/ Notice of Assignment’ on completion to enable us to update our records.

These can be sent to [email protected] or posted to our address at 8 Waldegrave Rd, Teddington TW11 8GT.

The charge for notice is £70 and can be made into the following account:

• Account Name: Richmond Housing Partnership
• Account Number: 10864568
• Sort Code: 30-80-12
• Reference: First line of address/NT

In the sad event of the death of a leaseholder, there are often questions from those acting as executors of the will, or who're waiting for the grant of probate. We’ve tried to highlight the main questions and answers below.  We are, however, here to support you through this difficult time so please contact the Homeowner Team at [email protected] if you want to discuss anything further.