Are you a homeowner looking for some advice or information?

Share Owners - Although you only own a share of your home, most leases state that you are responsible for all repairs and maintenance to your home (unless you have a New Model Lease between 2021-2026).

• For flats, this usually means you are responsible for everything from the floor up to and including the ceiling. Thrive are responsible for the external parts of the building and any internal communal areas. You should check your lease to see who is responsible for your flat front entrance door and the windows.
• For houses, this usually means you are responsible for everything both inside and outside of your home, as well as any external areas (e.g. garden, driveway) within your boundary line on your conveyance plan.

Leaseholders - You are responsible for all repairs and maintenance within your home.

• This usually means you are responsible for everything from the floor up to and including the ceiling. Thrive are responsible for the external parts of the building and any internal communal areas.
• You should check your lease to see who is responsible for your flat front entrance door and the windows.

Shared Owners - You can sell your shared ownership home at any time, but you must tell Thrive when you want to sell your home. The buyer will need to be assessed and approved by Thrive.

To start the resales process, please contact our Home Ownership team.

Leaseholders - You can sell your leasehold home at any time on the open market. When a buyer is found, your solicitor may have questions for Thrive; please ask them to contact our Home Ownership team.

You can paint and decorate and refurbish your home how you wish.

However, you will usually need written permission from Thrive to make any other alterations, such as works involving plumbing, gas, electrical wires, windows, landscaping, fixed units, lofts (this is not an exhaustive list). Structural changes are not permitted.

It is important that you obtain Thrive’s consent for any alteration work, as proof of this consent will be requested by solicitors when you come to sell your home.

If you are thinking of carrying out an alteration to your home, please contact the Home Ownership team to discuss this. Please note that we do charge an admin fee to review your request.

When you increase the share of your home that you own, this is known as ‘staircasing’. If you buy more shares, you’ll pay less rent to Thrive.

For example:

You own a 40% share and pay £800 a month in rent on the 60% Thrive owns. You buy another 30%, so now you own 70% of the home and Thrive owns 30%.

Because Thrive owns half as much as we did before, your rent is also half as much as it was - £400 instead of £800.

Thrive will arrange a RICS valuation to assess the value of your home and the cost of the additional share you wish to buy (usually through a mortgage or cash). You will be responsible for the cost of the valuation, your legal fees and new share.

For more information regarding the staircasing process, please contact the Home Ownership team.

Thrive review the rent and service charges in April each year. Your rent may go up when it is reviewed; this is usually in line with the calculation in your lease which uses the Retail Price Index (RPI) or Consumer Price Index (CPI). It will not go down.

Where Thrive owns the building, we are normally responsible for carrying out planned works, repairs, and improvements to the communal facilities, the structure of the building, and the estate. We carry out regular surveys which help us in assessing the age and condition of each building element, which in turn helps us to plan improvements or replacements that might be due in the future.

Sometimes these repairs or planned works are part of a large-scale contract and are known as ‘major works’- examples include roof or window replacement and cyclical decorations to the communal areas.

You will usually receive a separate invoice for major works once the service charge period ends on 31st March; we will write to you in the following September with your major works invoice which will detail the actual cost for works carried out in the previous financial year.

Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 provides that a landlord must consult with residents when the value of works or services we intend to carry out to your block/ estate is over a certain threshold. This law sets out strict processes that Thrive will follow with you prior to carrying out works.

You will usually receive at least two notices advising of what work/ service Thrive intend to carry out, followed by estimated costs. At each stage, customers are invited to give any observations.

Sometimes it is not possible for us to carry out a full Section 20 consultation with you, for example, in an emergency where there is an increased risk to safety or where there may be further damage to homes. In this instance, we will apply to the First Tier Tribunal for permission to charge homeowners for the works.

We aim to give you as much notice as possible so that you can start saving for an invoice for your major works. We recommend that you regularly put money aside for works that are carried out to your building so you can budget more easily for when these are required.

Leaseholders - Depending on the terms of your lease, you may be permitted to sub-let your home as a leaseholder. If so, it is likely that you require permission from Thrive before you start sub-letting your home.

Please note that the whole property would need to be sub-let under one tenancy; houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) are not permitted.

You will still be responsible for paying the ground rent (if applicable) and service charge to Thrive and ensuring your sub-tenant adheres to the terms of your lease. As the leaseholder, you would remain as Thrive’s customer and continue to receive all correspondence from us; Thrive would not be able to discuss anything relating to your home or account with your sub-tenant.

To request Thrive’s permission to sub-let, please contact our Home Ownership team.

Shared Owners - Sub-letting is not permitted for shared ownership homes. You should always live in your home (besides the usual holidays etc).

You are permitted to have a lodger stay with you, providing you also live in your home at the same time. To request Thrive’s permission to have a lodger, please contact our Home Ownership team.

This is your responsibility. Please ensure you take meter readings the day you move in and contact your utility suppliers straight away to set up your account.

Keeping you and your loved ones safe in your home is important. Gas is dangerous; regular inspections help identify any issues before they escalate into serious safety risks.

Gas safety checks are valid for 1 year only and so need to arrange for your gas safety check to be carried out at least annually by a qualified Gas Safe registered engineer.

Most leases have a condition where you must provide Thrive with evidence of your annual gas safety check to us each year. When you share your gas safety check evidence, you will be entered into our annual competition

Your lease may also require you to provide us with a copy of your Electrical Safety Certificate every 5 years, so please provide this to Thrive when applicable.

This is the new type of shared ownership lease applicable to homes with government funding that are built between 2021-2026.

They key differences between this new type of lease include the ability to staircase by 1% and the introduction of a 10-year period, where Thrive are responsible for some repairs to the property and shared owners have an annual allowance of £500 towards some repairs to their home.