The Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme (GAHOS)
The scheme enables eligible households to purchase a leasehold interest (‘share’) in their current social home on similar terms and at a similar cost to if they had purchased their Grenfell home through the statutory Right to Buy scheme.
Applies to England
Introduction
The Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme (GAHOS) is a government-led scheme that has been designed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
GAHOS has been developed to fulfil former Prime Minister Theresa May’s commitment that “everyone whose home was destroyed will be guaranteed a new home on the same terms as the one they lost.” In doing so, it aims to ensure that, as far as possible, former Grenfell residents whose homes were destroyed are no worse off in their ability to purchase their current social home due to the tragedy.
GAHOS opened for applications from eligible residents on Tuesday, 28 May 2024.
Who to contact
Residents can contact their landlord to begin the process of applying to the Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme using the below information. Before applying, residents must read both the relevant Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme: Application guide (see below) and the Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme: Key information document (see below).
Landlord contact information
- Islington Council: homeownership@islington.gov.uk
- Octavia: sales.services@octavia.org.uk
- Peabody: rta.rtb@peabody.org.uk
- The Richmond Housing Partnership: homeowner@rhp.org.uk
- The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC): grenfellhousingservices@rbkc.gov.uk
- Westminster City Council: housing.enquiries@westminister.gov.uk
Application documents
You can find all the documents you’ll need to make or process an application to GAHOS in the links below:
- The Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme: Application guides. This includes step-by-step guides on the application process for residents, solicitors acting on behalf of residents, and landlords.
- The Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme: Key information document. This document provides an in-depth overview of how the scheme works. All residents interested in applying to GAHOS are advised to read this document.
- The Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme: Application notices. This includes an application form for residents to complete. It also has all the notices landlords will need to send to residents during the application process.
- The Grenfell Assisted Home Ownership Scheme: Model leases. Landlords must ensure that the fundamental clauses in these leases are included in any lease granted to a resident through GAHOS.
Eligibility
GAHOS is open to former residents of Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk who had, or would have acquired, the statutory Right to Buy their Grenfell home. It is not open to former Grenfell residents who have already exercised their statutory Right to Buy or the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s (RBKC’s) Enhanced Portable Discount scheme.
If a resident who meets this criteria chooses, they can transfer their eligibility for GAHOS to another family member who lived with them at the time of the tragedy, but who has subsequently been rehoused to their own, separate social tenancy.
Only one GAHOS application is permitted per original Grenfell household. This means that if a resident transfers their eligibility to another family member, they will no longer be eligible for GAHOS themselves.
How GAHOS works
GAHOS gives former Grenfell residents the option to purchase a leasehold interest (‘share’) in their current home. To exercise GAHOS, residents must purchase a share in their current home that is at least equivalent to the market value of their Grenfell home. These market values are based on what a resident’s Grenfell home was worth on 1 June 2017. In most cases, the remaining share in a resident’s current home will continue to be owned by their existing landlord.
If a resident lives in a home that is owned or leased by RBKC, once they have exercised GAHOS, they can choose to have the remaining share transferred to the housing association, Sovereign Network Homes (SNG). SNG will then become the resident’s landlord. This option is only available to residents who have an existing social tenancy with RBKC. MHCLG will provide grant funding to cover the cost of SNG’s purchase of this share from RBKC.
When exercising GAHOS, residents are entitled to a discount on the purchase price of their share in their home. This discount is set at £136,400 (i.e. the maximum Right to Buy discount for London at the time GAHOS was launched in May 2024). The value of this discount will remain unchanged throughout GAHOS’s lifetime.
To reflect the higher market value of their current homes, residents can also access an additional level of discount, known as a ‘market premium’. The market premium element of GAHOS is equivalent to 20% of the market value of a resident’s Grenfell home. Landlords will receive grant funding from MHCLG for applying the market premium to the purchase price of residents’ share in their home.
Once these discounts have been accounted for, residents must use their own resources (a mortgage and/or savings, for example) to purchase the rest of their share in their current home.
Residents will not be required to pay rent on the share in their current home that is still owned by their landlord. This ensures that they are no worse off than they would have been had they purchased their Grenfell home, where there would have been no rent to pay. Their service charges will also be capped at Grenfell rates. This cap does not apply to charges for major works. Landlords will receive grant funding from MHCLG to compensate for any loss of income incurred through these features of GAHOS.
The lease terms
Once residents purchase a share in their current home, they will become leaseholders. The terms of their lease will spell out their rights and responsibilities regarding their share in their current home (for example, the need to pay service charges), as well as their landlord’s rights and responsibilities regarding their interest in the home (for example, the need to arrange repairs and maintenance work for communal areas within a wider block or estate).
As residents are purchasing a share in their current home, the terms of their leases will look similar to the terms of a shared ownership lease. To ensure that GAHOS’s specific features can operate effectively (for example, the cap on rent and service charges), all leases granted through GAHOS must contain a series of fundamental clauses, which are non-negotiable. MHCLG has issued guidance to all landlords to ensure leases contain the relevant fundamental clauses.
Over time, residents can increase the size of their share in their current home through a process known as ‘staircasing’. The type of staircasing used by GAHOS matches the staircasing arrangements for the new model of shared ownership. The option to staircase will be facilitated through the fundamental clauses of a resident’s lease.
The only exception to this is if a resident purchases a 100% share in a house and, in doing so, acquires the freehold. In this instance, the landlord can produce the relevant deed of transfer as necessary, and without the inclusion of the fundamental clauses. This is because the fundamental clauses are designed for the purchase of a leasehold interest in a home. They are not necessary for a freehold purchase because the resident will own the house outright.
Other available homeownership schemes
In addition to GAHOS, residents also have access to the statutory Right to Buy scheme (or equivalent contractual arrangement if their landlord is not a local authority) and the Enhanced Portable Discount scheme, which has been developed by RBKC.
Further information on both options can be found on Home ownership schemes for former Grenfell Tower and Walk tenants (PDF, 260 KB).
It is important to note that these are standalone options and that it is not possible to exercise more than one scheme, or to exercise them in combination.