{"id":494083,"date":"2026-03-25T07:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494083\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T07:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:58:09","slug":"wildly-unaffordable-shared-ownership-scheme-leaves-buyers-exposed-to-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494083\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Wildly unaffordable&#8217; shared ownership scheme leaves buyers exposed to costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Jamie Sugar, who acquired her home through the scheme, says: &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s affordable at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sugar is a single parent and bought a 25% share of a three\u2011bedroom flat in north London to share with her child and disabled mother. She says she is struggling to afford her home after service charges rose to more than \u00a38,000 per year &#8211; an increase of nearly 50% in under four years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">From April, she faces paying \u00a3683 per month in service charges on top of her rent and mortgage payments. Housing costs, before bills, now take up more than half of her income.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My net income is about \u00a32,998 a month, and my housing costs are now over 50% of that. It&#8217;s just not sustainable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I knew there would be service charges,&#8221; she says, &#8220;but shared ownership was advertised as affordable housing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sugar&#8217;s housing association said it understood her concerns about rising costs, and would contact her to provide clarity on charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But Jamie Sugar, who acquired her home through the scheme, says: &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s affordable at all.&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-494083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}