A shared-ownership staircasing valuation is a separate instruction. Why will this home survey not state the price of the extra share?

What is the fuller explanation?

Staircasing is the purchase of a further slice of the home from the landlord, usually the housing association, at a figure set under the lease's valuation rules. Those rules often name who may value, what they are valuing, and how fresh the figure must be. A condition survey instructed for the purchase you are making now is not that valuation. It does not know the percentage you might buy in five years, the association's procedure, or the market figure on a later day. Section 5 of the 2022 Act is about rent, not about the price of the extra share: peppercorn on what you already hold as tenant, and rent still possible on what the landlord still holds.

The under-80 point is a different bill again. GOV.UK warns that extending a lease can be much more expensive below 80 years. Ask the solicitor how many years remain and whether staircasing or an extension is even on the table. Ask the association, when the time comes, for the staircasing instruction itself. Use this report for damp, roofs, windows and services. Do not write a guessed percentage price in the margin, and do not ask the surveyor to pretend today's visit is the valuation the lease will one day require.

What should you ask your surveyor?

• Are you instructed to value an extra share, or only to report condition?
• Will you leave both the rent and any future share price uncalculated?
• Which defects would still matter if you later bought a larger share of the same building?

What are the typical next steps?

1. Ask the solicitor how many years remain on the lease.
2. Commission a staircasing valuation only when that is the actual instruction.
3. Do not treat this report as the price of a larger share.

Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.

Also asked about this

Which pages should you read next?

• The housing association says the window is yours to repair. Does the survey decide that, or does the lease?
• The survey notes cladding and the management pack contains no EWS1. Has either document produced that form?
• The snagging photographs in the pack show a plot number that is not yours. What should you not negotiate from those pictures?
• Guide: What survey do you need for shared ownership?
• All UK home survey questions

Sources

• GOV.UK: Right to Shared Ownership (includes the warning that extending a lease can be much more expensive below 80 years)
• legislation.gov.uk: Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, section 5 (shared ownership: peppercorn on the tenant’s share)
• RICS: RICS Home Surveys (Home Survey Standard)