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Josie Dom, 53, was thrilled when she moved into her new home in October.

She bought 30% of it through the shared ownership scheme as an affordable route to home ownership, even if it was only partial ownership.

The idea is to help people who would not be able to buy a home outright get on to the housing ladder earlier by buying a share of a property and paying subsidised rent on the rest – often to a non-profit housing association.

Without it, she says there was no way for her and her two children to stay in Colchester, where they love living and attend school and college.

But her enthusiasm started waning when after just six months, the housing association increased the building’s service charges by 138%, from £85 to £202 per month.

While she had anticipated small annual rises, this unexpectedly large jump was unaffordable.

“Obviously the idea of shared ownership is to help people like me that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford their own home,” said Ms Dom.

“Then suddenly, again, we can’t afford it. It makes a mockery of being shared ownership and having social housing.”

Josie Dom tells Sky News about her service charge increases at her new shared ownership flat.
Image:
Josie Dom tells Sky News about her service charge increases at her new shared ownership home

The expanded scheme now makes up half of affordable homes funding.

Sky News has been approached by dozens of other shared owners facing soaring costs and other issues, including difficulty selling.

With rising mortgage costs this relatively cheaper option appears to be increasingly appealing to buyers.

Rightmove, the UK’s largest online property website, told Sky News shared ownership properties are taking 56 days to sell versus 65 days for all other properties on average, as of March 2024.

And interest has increased over time – they said demand is up 37% from a year ago for shared ownership properties.

Initially low costs can be misleading, however.

Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent, was on the government’s shared ownership cross parliamentary report committee.

He told Sky News: “They don’t actually have the rights of control that full ownership ought to give because you are both a tenant and a share in the ownership – and you’re paying the full service charge on the property.

“People just find it a desperate trap.”

Record numbers are seeking legal advice

Data from The Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) shows the number of leaseholders seeking legal advice about service charges has increased in recent years.

Legal advice for leaseholders increase

The number of enquiries dealt with about the reasonableness of service charges has nearly doubled compared with 2021.

There were over 1,300 enquiries in the three months to March 2024, the highest number since records beginning in 2018.

LEASE joint CEOs Sally Frazer and Alice Bradley told Sky News they are concerned about the increase, “particularly over the last year”.

“More broadly we know there is still not enough awareness of the service and support our organisation can offer,” they added.

Feeling trapped

Affordability and freedom are typical selling points advertised to buyers, as well as the opportunity to “staircase” towards higher ownership shares while saving money on rent.

But for Alex, who bought 25% of his north London flat in 2019, the very opposite has been true. The dream of home ownership has become a nightmare, leaving him and many others in his building feeling trapped.

In February, residents were told by their property management company James Andrew Residential (JAR) that the service charge would be more than tripling, from £500 to £1,700 per month from April.

His rent and service charge are now over £2,900 per month, and the mortgage is an additional £800.

Fitzgerald Court, where service charges have increased from £500 to £1,700 per month
Image:
Fitzgerald Court, where service charges have increased from £500 to £1,700 per month

“My partner and I just got engaged, but we can’t plan the wedding. All our money is going to keeping us in the flat, and now we’re using up our existing savings,” he told Sky News.

“In 2019 it seemed like a great affordable option, but now we would be better off if we were renting and are worried about being able to sell at all.”

In response to residents’ concerns, the property managers JAR told Sky News they were engaging with owners and investigating the matter to see if costs can be mitigated.

Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association, who own the other share of Alex’s flat, told Sky News the service charge increase is “outrageous and not justifiable”.

They said: “We firmly disagree with JAR’s assessment that the residents should bear such major maintenance costs for a six-year-old building”.

“We will be challenging the cost increase on behalf of our residents and will go to tribunal to fight it if we must.”

Leasehold reform is needed

The issue of leasehold charges is not unique to shared owners and has been recognised as a wider industry issue.

“The problem lies in the leasehold structure of the housing market and its application to shared ownership,” said Stanimara Milcheva, Professor in Real Estate Finance at University College London.

Service charges are often dictated by the management company which may also own the freehold.

Prof Milcheva added there should be more transparency, so shared ownership buyers have more access to relevant information about service charges in their region.

Stanimara Milcheva, Professor in Real Estate Finance at University College London
Image:
Stanimara Milcheva, Professor in Real Estate Finance at University College London

The government introduced the Renters Reform Bill to parliament in 2023, a piece of legislation that aims to improve conditions for renters, but which has wider implications for the leasehold sector.

Its proposed measures to regulate service charges include greater transparency and breakdowns of costs, and the exclusion of insurance costs. But it is unclear when, or if, the currently delayed Bill will make it through Parliament in its present form.

These issues do have the potential to cause more financial stress to shared owners, who are typically earning lower incomes than those who buy their first home outright.

From preliminary research, Prof Milcheva and colleagues found that the gross income of the main first-time shared ownership buyer was on average 23% lower, at £42k compared to £55k for those buying outright, between 2015 and 2023.

The most affected region is London

Service charges do not affect all shared owners, as although most are leaseholders the majority live in houses.

Flats vs other dwelling types, shared owners

Still, close to 94,000 (40%) of shared ownership households are in flats, based on the latest estimates from the 2021 Census.

Nearly half of these (43,000 households) are in London, while outside of London the proportion of those in flats falls to 27%.

“Service charges are more of a problem in London, where pretty much the entire stock of shared ownership are apartments,” said Prof Milcheva.

This has an impact on the relative costs of service charges, which are as much as triple the price in London relative to rent costs, at 30% of rent compared to 10%-13% in other areas, according to their research.

Shared ownership has now overtaken social rent

Shared ownership makes up a relatively small percentage of households overall, at around one in 100 according to the latest Census data – with slightly higher concentrations in some areas, mostly in the south of England.

Map of shared ownership

However, it does now make up a half of new funding spent on affordable housing, overtaking social rent as the main type of publicly subsidised housebuilding under the current government.

The main types of affordable housing tenures are social rent, affordable rent (which is less subsidised than social rent, at up to 80% of market rates) and shared ownership.

There has been more incentive for developers – who often have a quota of affordable housing to meet set by local authorities – to build shared ownership or affordable rent properties.

The Affordable Homes Programme, which has been the primary funding source for new affordable homes since 2011, has also switched focus away from social rent towards shared ownership and affordable rent.

Funding trends affordable homes

This trend continued in the latest funding commitment for 2021-2026, with 50% of the £11.5bn allocated for 162,000 new affordable homes earmarked for shared ownership, with the other 50% split between social rent and affordable rent.

As a result of the lack of incentive to build social rent properties, the number of new builds is at historically very low levels with less than 10,000 completed in 2022/23.

Council houses built

A DLUHC spokesperson said: “Through our long-term plan for housing, we are investing £11.5bn in the Affordable Homes Programme and remain on track to build one million over this Parliament.

“Shared ownership has a vital role to play in helping people onto the property ladder, and since 2010 we have delivered approximately 156,800 new shared ownership homes.”

They said they are taking action to ensure the shared ownership scheme provides the best value for owners, including proposals to give the right to extend leases by 990 years in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill.

I feel bad pushing the problems onto someone else, but I want to get out”

The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee‘s (LUHCC) cross-parliamentary report noted as well as the issues of rising rents and uncapped service charges, shared owners have “a disproportionate exposure to repair and maintenance costs”.

Despite improvements to shared ownership leases from 2021, with the introduction of a 10-year period for repairs, they say more can be done to make costs proportionate to the size of share owned, including proportional service charges as well maintenance costs.

“Then the housing association will have ‘skin in the game’ and might be incentivised to better scrutinise service charges and property management companies,” said Prof Milcheva.

Shared ownership homes in Colchester
Image:
Shared ownership homes in Colchester

Meanwhile, owners of earlier contracts remain responsible for 100% of costs, regardless of if the property has changed hands.

This creates a “two tier” system, where older properties become unattractive and harder to sell, according to the report.

Will Eggleston, a 33-year-old metalworker bought 50% of his Southwest London flat in 2019.

His service charge has more than doubled since then, from £200 to over £400 a month, with most of the increase happening in the past year.

“There’s just no visible benefit and no explanation to it. The building is in worse condition than when I moved in. The garden has died, the hall is in a bad state,” he said.

His building is one of many high rises to have been impacted by cladding safety concerns and costs of remediation following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire tragedy.

“L&Q – who are my head lease, hadn’t mentioned anything about cladding or anything when I was purchasing the flat,” said Mr. Eggleston.

This can be a particular issue for shared owners with covenants that prevent them subletting properties they can no longer afford to live in at market rates.

A spokesperson for L&Q said: “L&Q is a charitable housing association and does not make profits from service charges.”

Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward (KFH), the property managers at Mr Eggleston’s building, said that the doubled service charge is due to increases in general maintenance and cleaning, insurance, electricity, and reserve funds for future works.

They added that they would have made the resident aware of the facts known about cladding at the time he purchased his apartment.

Activist group End Our Cladding Scandal say the government and housing providers have failed to mitigate the impact of the building safety crisis on shared owners.

They said: “This has already led to repossessions and forced shared owners into distressed sales to cash buyers.

“Others have had to become “accidental landlords”, forced into loss-making subletting agreements while their neighbours, who are private leaseholders, can rent out their flats at whatever rate they choose.”

Meanwhile, the high service charges and ongoing cladding issues are getting in the way of Mr Eggleston’s hopes to sell and move out.

“I feel bad pushing the problems onto someone else. But on the other hand, I want to get out,” he said.

Calls for more transparency

Shared ownership can have a positive role for those who do not qualify for other government affordable homes schemes but cannot access full ownership, being on average cheaper than private renting, according to Prof Milcheva and colleagues’ research.

But there are some key data gaps, including on how common it is for people to staircase up to higher shares of ownership, which make it hard to assess the overall success of the scheme.

Rhys Moore, executive director of public impact at the National Housing Federation, said: “Shared ownership remains an important route to home ownership for many households and we support measures to improve residents’ experience through greater transparency around costs and improved access to information, as well as better government data on the product.”

Ann Santry, chair of Shared Ownership Council said: “We acknowledge the need for further reforms of the tenure to help shared ownership fulfil its potential as an affordable home ownership model.”

Josie Dom's bill, including charges for non existent services like CCTV
Image:
Josie Dunn’s bill, including charges for non-existent services like CCTV

In Josie Dom’s case, after being contacted by Sky News her building’s Housing Association Peabody said it had made a mistake and would be issuing a correction letter to residents.

A spokesperson for Peabody said: “It’s important to us that service charges are accurate and reasonable. This was an error and we’re really sorry. No one has been overcharged and we’ve written to those affected.”

At the time of publication, the issue remains unresolved, and residents have not yet received this information.

Josie is in rent arrears. “It’s a crazy amount of stress to go through,” she said.


With additional reporting and production by Michelle Inez Simon, visual investigations producer, and Tom Cheshire, Data & Forensics correspondent


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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Donald Trump announces sweeping global trade tariffs – including 10% on UK imports

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Donald Trump announces sweeping global trade tariffs - including 10% on UK imports

Donald Trump has announced a 10% trade tariff on all imports from the UK – as he unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.

Speaking at a White House event entitled “Make America Wealthy Again”, the president held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.

“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters, while hitting out at foreign “cheaters”.

Follow live: Trump tariffs latest

He claimed “trillions” of dollars from the “reciprocal” levies he was imposing on others’ trade barriers would provide relief for the US taxpayer and restore US jobs and factories.

Mr Trump said the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.

President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Pic: AP

His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am on Thursday, UK time.

Mr Trump confirmed the European Union would face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate was set at 34%.

The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bows over the country’s 20% VAT rate, though the president’s board suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations.

It was also confirmed that further US tariffs were planned on some individual sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical mineral imports.

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Trump’s tariffs explained

The ramping up of duties promises to be painful for the global economy. Tariffs on steel and aluminium are already in effect.

The UK government signalled there would be no immediate retaliation.

Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers. That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.

“The US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today.

“We have a range of tools at our disposal and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.

“Nobody wants a trade war and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”

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Who showed up for Trump’s tariff address?

The EU has pledged to retaliate, which is a problem for Northern Ireland.

Should that scenario play out, the region faces the prospect of rising prices because all its imports are tied to EU rules under post-Brexit trading arrangements.

It means US goods shipped to Northern Ireland would be subject to the EU’s reprisals.

The impact of a trade war would be expected to be widely negative, with tit-for-tat tariffs risking job losses, a ramping up of prices and cooling of global trade.

Research for the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested more than 25,000 direct jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry alone could be at risk from the tariffs on car exports to the US.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had said the tariff costs could not be absorbed by manufacturers and may lead to a review of output.

The tariffs now on UK exports pose a big risk to growth and the so-called headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to restore to the public finances at the spring statement, risking further spending cuts or tax rises ahead to meet her fiscal rules.

Read more:
What do Trump’s tariffs mean for the UK?
The rewards and risks for US as trade war intensifies

A member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), David Miles, told MPs on Tuesday that US tariffs at 20% or 25% maintained on the UK for five years would “knock out all the headroom the government currently has”.

But he added that a “very limited tariff war” that the UK stays out of could be “mildly positive”.

He said: “There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK, and some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world.

“And stuff would be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been. So there is one, not central scenario at all, which is very, very mildly potentially positive to the UK. All the other ones which involve the UK facing tariffs are negative, and they’re negative to very different extents.”

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Donald Trump’s tariffs will have consequences for globalisation, the US economy and geopolitics

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Donald Trump's tariffs will have consequences for globalisation, the US economy and geopolitics

For decades, trade and trade policy has been an economic and political backwater – decidedly boring, seemingly uncontroversial. 

Trade was mostly free and getting freer, tariffs were getting lower and lower, and the world was becoming more, not less, globalised.

But alongside those long-term trends, there were some serious consequences.

Trump latest: US president announces sweeping global trade tariffs

Mature, developed economies like the UK and US became ever more reliant on cheap imports from China and, in the process, saw their manufacturing sectors shrink.

Large swathes of the rust belt in the US – and much of the Midlands and North of England – were hollowed out.

And to some extent that’s where the story of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” really began – with the notion that free trade and globalisation had a darker side, a side he wants to remedy via tariffs.

More on Donald Trump

He imposed a set of tariffs in his first term, some on China, some on specific materials like steel and aluminium. But the height and the breadth of those tariffs were as nothing compared with the ones we have just heard about.

Not since the 1930s has the US so radically increased the level of tariffs on all nations across the world. Back then, those tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression.

It’s anyone’s guess as to what the consequences of these ones will be. But there will be consequences.

Consequences for the nature of globalisation, consequences for the US economy (tariffs are exceptionally inflationary), consequences for geopolitics.

President Trump with his list of tariffs for various countries. Pic: Reuters
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Imports from the UK will face a 10% tariff, while EU goods will see 20% rates. Pic: Reuters

And to some extent, merely knowing that little bit more about the White House’s plans will deliver a bit of relief to financial markets, which have fretted for months about the imposition of tariffs. That uncertainty recently reached unprecedented levels.

But don’t for a moment assume that this saga is over. Nothing of the sort. In the coming days, we will learn more – more about the nuts and bolts of these policies, more about the retaliatory measures coming from other countries.

We will, possibly, get more of a sense about whether some countries – including the UK – will enjoy reprieves from the tariffs.

To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the trade war, or even the beginning of the end – perhaps just the end of the beginning.

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Heathrow bosses were warned about power supply after stolen cables turned off runway lights, MPs told

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Heathrow bosses were warned about power supply after stolen cables turned off runway lights, MPs told

Heathrow bosses were warned its power supply was vulnerable less than a week before a major outage, and a terminal could have got some flights moving by mid-morning rather than being shut for a day, a committee of MPs has heard.

The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told MPs of the Transport Committee he raised issues about resilience on 15 March after cable and wiring theft took out lights on a runway.

Mr Wicking said he believed Heathrow’s Terminal 5 could have been ready to receive repatriation flights by “late morning” on the day of the closure, as “there was opportunity also to get flights out”.

Politics latest: ‘Disastrous’ not to shut Heathrow during outage, airport boss says

A fire at an electricity substation in west London meant the power supply was disrupted to Europe’s largest airport for a day – causing travel chaos for nearly 300,000 passengers, the committee heard.

“I’d actually warned Heathrow of concerns that we had with regard to the substations and my concern was resilience”, said Mr Wicking, the head of a body representing more than 90 airlines using Heathrow Airport.

“So the first occasion was to team Heathrow director on the 15th of the month of March. And then I also spoke to the chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before regarding this concern.

“And it was following a number of, a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft, of wire and cable around some of the power supply that on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time. That obviously made me concerned.”

Other problems

The biggest challenge was getting information, Mr Wicking said.

The desire for information on the outage and closure was so large that a Teams call on the day of the closure was “maxed out” with “a thousand participants”, he added.

However, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said keeping the airport open during last month’s power outage would have been “disastrous”.

There was a risk of having “literally tens of thousands of people stranded in the airport, where we have nowhere to put them”, Mr Woldbye told MPs.

Fire surveillance and CCTV systems were down as a result of having limited electricity, he added, meaning it would not have been safe to reopen.

‘The most expensive airport in the world’

Heathrow should have top quality infrastructure and service, Mr Wicking said.

“It is the most expensive airport in the world with regard to passenger challenges. So from our perspective, that means we should actually have the best service. We should have the best infrastructure,” he added.

Aerials show burned substation which shut Heathrow Airport
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Aerials show burned substation which shut Heathrow Airport

A review on resilience at Heathrow was done in 2018, he told MPs, but was told it was “not for sharing” with airlines.

“I think it is for sharing now because frankly, we’re paying enough”, Mr Wickling said he told Mr Woldbye.

“I don’t feel that we should be paying more attention for further resilience. The resilience should have been there in the first place.”

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