Co-Ownership Scheme gets Funding Boost

Finance Minister Sammy Wilson recently announced that the NI Assembly will be providing an extra £40 million of funding to the Co-Ownership Housing Scheme over the next 4 years.

Co-Ownership is a popular way of getting yourself onto the property ladder in Northern Ireland. It aims to give those who hope to own their own home but can't quite afford it, the assistance they need to get onto that first step.

Co-Ownership has been running since 1978 and so far has helped more than 21,500 households to purchase the homes of their choice through shared ownership.

The scheme works by allowing purchasers to buy as large a share as they can afford to start with (between 50% and 90%), purchasers can then increase that share at any time (this is known as 'staircasing').

Anyone interested in purchasing a home though this scheme should visit www.co-ownership.org for more information. There are no quotas in place on applications at the moment, so they can be made at any time.