Staircasing: how to buy more of your shared ownership home

What is staircasing?

Staircasing is the name for buying more shares in your shared ownership home from the landlord, step by step, until you own as much of it as you want or as the lease allows, which for most homes is 100% (GOV.UK). Each step cuts your rent, because rent is charged on the share the landlord still owns.

It is the mechanism that turns shared ownership from part buy, part rent into full ownership, and it is the part most buyers are sold on. It is also the part fewest people use. A committee of MPs reported in March 2024 that only around 3% of shared owners reach 100% ownership each year (House of Commons committee report). This page explains the rules and the costs so you can judge whether you would be one of them.

How much can you buy at a time?

The rules depend on your lease and on when you bought.

GOV.UK says you can usually buy shares of 10% or more at any time, that some newer leases allow shares of 5% or more, and that if you bought on or after 1 April 2021 you may also be able to buy 1% each year for the first 15 years. You cannot buy shares of 2%, 3% or 4% (GOV.UK). The 1% option is a feature of the 2021 new model lease, which Homes England describes as sitting alongside the minimum 5% transaction (Homes England guidance); the new build page covers the rest of that lease.

How is the price set?

For a share of 5% or more, you pay for a valuation by a surveyor registered with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the landlord decides who arranges it (GOV.UK). Your price is the percentage you are buying multiplied by that valuation. The valuation has a shelf life: you must buy within 3 months of the valuation date or the home has to be revalued, at your cost again.

If you have improved the home, the valuation shows two figures, the current market value and the unimproved value. With the landlord’s written permission for the work, you pay on the unimproved value, so you are not charged for your own new kitchen. Without it, you pay on the current value (GOV.UK). Get permission in writing before you improve anything.

For a 1% share, there is no surveyor. The price is based on the original price of your home, increased or decreased in line with the House Price Index (GOV.UK). The landlord provides the figure each year or on request.

What does buying an extra share cost?

Besides the share itself, four costs apply to a purchase of 5% or more.

• The valuation fee, which you pay (GOV.UK).
• An administration fee charged by the landlord each time, which GOV.UK says can vary from around £150 to around £500. It is not charged on 1% purchases.
• Your own legal fees, because the lease has to be varied and the Land Registry updated.
• Mortgage costs, if you borrow to fund the share: a further advance or a remortgage, with a lender’s valuation and possibly product fees.

Add stamp duty for some buyers, explained below and in full on the stamp duty page.

Worked example: buying another 10%

Say you bought a 40% share of a £300,000 home in 2023 for £120,000, and three years later a surveyor values the home at £330,000. You want to move to 50%.

The rent figures use 2.75% a year of the landlord’s share, the rate GOV.UK says most landlords charge (GOV.UK), calculated on the original £300,000 for simplicity; in real life the rent will have had two or three annual increases by then, so the saving is a little bigger. The 5.55% mortgage rate is our September 2026 working figure for a shared ownership mortgage taken with a 5% deposit, from the HomeOwners Alliance rate table; a bigger deposit or more equity in the share would earn a cheaper rate. Notice that the 10% share cost £33,000, not the £30,000 it would have cost on day one, because prices rose. In a rising market, waiting costs you your own share of the growth.

Paying about £148 more a month to own 10% more of the home, and to stop paying rent on that slice for ever, is a good deal for many people. The shared ownership calculator shows the cost of any extra share at any value.

How does 1% staircasing work?

If your lease allows it, you can buy 1% each year for the first 15 years, at a price based on the original price moved in line with the House Price Index, with no valuation and no administration fee (GOV.UK). On the example home, 1% of the original £300,000 is £3,000; if the index has risen 10%, the price is £3,300.

Over 15 years that adds up to 15% of the home for a fraction of the fees a single 10% purchase involves. It is a feature of homes funded under the 2021 rules, so check the key information document. Many people pay for these small shares from savings rather than borrowing £3,000 at a time.

What happens to your rent?

When you buy more shares you pay less rent, because the rent is based on the landlord’s share (GOV.UK). In most leases the reduction is in proportion: cut the landlord’s share from 60% to 50% and the rent falls by a sixth. The annual rent review still applies to whatever rent is left, and GOV.UK says that review only ever moves the rent up (GOV.UK). At 100% the rent stops, though on a flat the service charge carries on.

Is there stamp duty when you buy more shares?

It depends on the choice you made when you first bought. If you paid Stamp Duty Land Tax on the full market value at the start, HMRC says you pay no more even if you buy the rest in several stages (HMRC). If you paid in stages, you pay nothing and send no return while your share stays at 80% or below; the purchase that takes you over 80%, and any after it, is taxed on the total you have paid across the linked purchases. First-time buyers’ relief does not apply to these later purchases (HMRC). The stamp duty page works through examples of both routes.

Can you reach 100%?

For most shared ownership homes the maximum share you can own is 100%. In some places, called designated protected areas, you can only ever own up to 80%, and in older persons shared ownership the maximum is 75% (GOV.UK). The 80% cap keeps rural homes affordable for the next buyer, and it also affects who will lend to you, so check it before you buy.

Reaching 100% ends the rent and the landlord’s say over your sale. Your home stays leasehold if it is a flat, as all flats are. If it is a house, many leases provide for the freehold to pass to you at 100%; check yours.

How does this compare with Your First Home?

Your First Home, the new government equity loan, has its own version of this: you own 100% of the home from day one, and later repay the government’s 20% loan, expected to be worked out as 20% of the home’s value at the time, not the sum borrowed, as under Help to Buy (GOV.UK). Like buying shares from a shared ownership landlord, that gets dearer as prices rise. The difference is that a shared owner pays rent on the unbought part while waiting, and a Your First Home buyer pays nothing on the loan for an initial period. The Your First Home vs Shared Ownership page compares both routes to full ownership; the detailed Your First Home rules come at the Budget on 28 October 2026.

What to do next

• Find out from your lease and key information document which share sizes you can buy, whether the 1% option applies, and whether an 80% cap exists.
• Get the landlord’s written permission before any improvement, so you are not charged for your own work later.
• Price the next share in the shared ownership calculator, then ask your lender what a further advance would cost each month.
• Check the stamp duty page if you paid in stages and are heading above 80%.