Homeowner hub

Once you have purchased your property under RTB or RTA, the transfer document will contain a provision that the discount you’ve received must be repaid should you sell the property within 5 years of your purchase.

The amount of discount to be repaid, if you sell the property within 5 years of your purchase, will be a percentage of the resale value and will be reduced by 20% for each year that has passed since your purchase.

If you are selling your property within 5 years of purchasing under RTB or RTA please click here to contact us about re-payment of the discount.

If you sell your property within 10 years of purchasing under RTB or RTA, you will need to offer the property back to Flagship for the full current market value prior to selling on the open market.

If your offer has not been accepted by Flagship within 8 weeks, the property can be sold on the open market.

If you want to offer your property back to Flagship, please submit your request by clicking on the form below:

When a property in a rural area has been sold under RTB, a restriction is imposed under s157 of the Housing Act 1985.

This prevents the property being sold to anyone, other than a purchaser, who has lived or worked in the local area for at least three years (if there is more than one purchaser, only one of them must satisfy the requirement). S157 Restrictions apply to lettings as well. A prospective tenant must have lived or worked in Norfolk for three years immediately preceding the tenancy start date. Note that a property with a s157 restriction can never be used as a second or holiday home.

We require two separate forms of evidence which must cover the whole of the previous three years. Examples of documents we require are:

• Utility bills (covering the whole of the last three years)
• Council Tax Bills (covering the whole of the last three years)
• Certificate of Residency letter from Electoral Registration records
• A letter from an employer confirming continuous employment in Norfolk for the last three years

If the home that you own was once a local authority or housing association property, there may be a restriction on your title deeds preventing you building another property on your land.

If you wish to do this, you can approach us in relation to releasing this covenant. If we agree, we will carry out a release of covenant valuation to calculate the premium payable in relation to the release.

This is because we are a community benefit corporation and are bound to achieve the best value for any transaction. You will be responsible for the cost of the valuation - a quote will be obtained from our surveyors once you have provided us with details of the proposed works.

We will then send out an offer letter to you stating that we agree to release the covenant for the premium referred to in the valuation, subject to payment of our legal fees of £600 plus VAT. You will need to instruct a solicitor to deal with the transaction, and you will be responsible for their legal fees.

Once you own your home, you may need our permission to make alterations to the property.

This restriction would have been placed on your property to protect the surrounding properties. Please check your conveyance/transfer/lease – if your property is leasehold please refer to our leaseholder hub.

There will be a small administrative cost payable to Flagship – please see the below table for a breakdown of payable costs. If you want request permission from Flagship, please submit your request by clicking on the form below:

You may live in an area where service charges/grounds maintenance fees are payable to Flagship.

If this is the case, there will likely be a restriction on your title deeds stating that there can be no sale without a certificate of compliance, confirming the provision of the original sale document has been complied with.

When you sell your property, we will require your purchaser to enter into an agreement called a Deed of Covenant, in which they agree to pay these fees on request as set out in the original transfer/conveyance.

On payment of our fee (see table below) we will provide this to your solicitors on request and once this has been returned to us signed by the purchasers, we will provide a certificate of compliance to deal with the restriction and enable registration to take place.

If you have any queries about restrictions on your title please click here: