Shared ownership eligibility: who qualifies in 2026

What are the shared ownership eligibility rules?

Shared ownership eligibility comes down to two tests: your household income must be £80,000 a year or less, or £90,000 or less in London, and you must be unable to afford all of the deposit and mortgage payments for a home that meets your needs (GOV.UK). Pass both and you can buy a share of a home from a housing association, council or other approved landlord.

You also need to fit one of five situations. GOV.UK lists them as: you are a first-time buyer; you used to own a home but cannot afford to buy one now; you are forming a new household, for example after a relationship breakdown; you are an existing shared owner and want to move; or you own a home and want to move but cannot afford a new home that meets your needs (GOV.UK). Most people fall into the first group, but the scheme is not only for first-time buyers, which is one of the main differences from Your First Home.

The rest of this page takes each rule in turn. If you want the basics of how the scheme works first, start with what is shared ownership.

What is the shared ownership income cap?

The shared ownership income cap is £80,000 a year for a household anywhere in England outside London, and £90,000 a year for a household buying in London (GOV.UK).

GOV.UK does not define household income for Shared Ownership; in practice landlords count the income of everyone named on the application, not just the main earner, so ask before you apply. The cap is a ceiling for getting in, not a target. In practice the second test, affordability, bites long before the cap does for most buyers, because a mortgage adviser has to be satisfied that you can carry the mortgage, rent and service charge together.

There is no minimum income written into the rules. The floor is set by whether a lender will give you a mortgage on the share and whether the landlord’s affordability check passes.

What does unable to afford a suitable home mean?

It means you cannot raise the deposit and the mortgage needed to buy, on the open market, a home big enough for your household (GOV.UK). It does not mean you have no savings at all. It means the gap between what you have and what a full purchase needs is too wide.

A worked example makes the test clearer. Say you earn £48,000 on your own, have £15,000 saved and need a one-bedroom flat in outer London priced at £350,000.

Lenders limit the number of new mortgages they grant at 4.5 times income or more, under a Bank of England rule that keeps such loans to 15% of new lending across the market (since July 2025 a single lender may exceed 15% while the market as a whole stays within it) (Bank of England). A loan at 6.9 times income is out of reach, and your savings fall short of even the smallest deposit. You cannot afford a suitable home outright, so you pass the second test, and £48,000 is under the London cap of £90,000, so you pass the first.

The 5.15% rate is our September 2026 working figure for a 90% mortgage, a rounded average of the best two-year and five-year fixes from lenders operating across England (5.13% and 5.14%, with Nationwide at 5.18%) in the HomeOwners Alliance rate table on 26 September 2026. Add the service charge from the listing and you have the monthly figure the mortgage adviser will test against your income. The shared ownership calculator does the arithmetic for any home and share.

Can I qualify if I already own or used to own a home?

Yes, in the right circumstances. If you used to own a home but cannot afford to buy one now, you qualify on that ground (GOV.UK). If you own a home now, you can still apply if you cannot afford to move to a home that meets your needs, but you must have formally accepted an offer on your current home and have written confirmation of the sale agreed before you complete on the shared ownership home.

The test is about your finances today, not your history. That is a real difference from Your First Home, which the government has said is for first-time buyers only (GOV.UK).

Who gets priority?

Three groups have special rules.

• Armed forces. GOV.UK says your offer will be prioritised if you are a serving member of the armed forces, and it may be if you served previously; the landlord applies the detailed rule (GOV.UK).
• People aged 55 and over. Older persons shared ownership lets you buy up to a 75% share, and once you own 75% you pay no rent on the rest (GOV.UK). You cannot go above 75%.
• People with a long-term disability. Home ownership for people with long-term disabilities, known as HOLD, lets you buy a home that meets your specific needs, for example a ground floor flat, if other scheme homes do not (GOV.UK).

Some individual homes carry extra conditions set by the council that granted planning permission, such as priority for people who live or work in the area. Those are not national rules, so ask the landlord about each home.

What else will the landlord check?

When you contact an organisation selling shared ownership homes, GOV.UK says it will make sure you are eligible, send you information about homes for sale, arrange viewings and check you can afford the home (GOV.UK). The affordability check is done with a mortgage adviser, who looks at your income, outgoings, savings and the mortgage you could get on the share (GOV.UK).

Expect to show payslips or accounts, bank statements, proof of your deposit and identity documents, the same as for any mortgage. Once you are approved for a home you usually pay a reservation fee of up to £500 to the landlord (GOV.UK), then instruct a solicitor; the solicitors page explains what happens next.

You can find homes through housing associations, councils, homebuilders and the national property websites, and through the Homes for Londoners website in the capital (GOV.UK).

How does eligibility compare with Your First Home?

Your First Home, the equity loan scheme announced on 26 September 2026, is for first-time buyers only, on new-build homes in England only, with a 2.5% deposit and a 20% government loan, and it will have a household income cap whose level is due at the Budget on 28 October 2026 (GOV.UK). Shared ownership already has its cap, at £80,000 or £90,000, welcomes people who have owned before and covers existing homes as well as new ones. If you are a first-time buyer under both caps who wants a new build, you may qualify for either, and the Your First Home vs Shared Ownership page compares what each would cost you.

What to do next

• Add up the income of everyone who will be on the lease and check it against £80,000, or £90,000 in London.
• Work out whether you could buy a suitable home outright: 5% of the price as a deposit and a mortgage of no more than about 4.5 times your income is the rough test.
• Price the share you could afford in the shared ownership calculator, including rent and service charge.
• Contact housing associations and councils in your area, or the Homes for Londoners site in London, and ask for the key information document on any home you like.