Home buy management overview
All housing organisations that receive applications from tenants wishing to purchase their rented home, either in full or in part, can manage the end-to-end process using the Civica Cx Housing Home Buy module. The comprehensive functionality contained therein supports all three classifications of home purchase scheme:
Right to Buy - This scheme is available to secure tenants of local authorities and non-charitable housing associations, and to assured tenants of registered providers (housing associations) who moved with their homes from a local authority to a housing association as part of a stock transfer, referred to as 'Preserved Right to Buy' (i.e. if the potential applicant was previously a secure tenant of a local authority and then became an assured tenant because ownership of their home was transferred to a registered provider).
Right to Acquire - This comparable scheme allows housing association tenants to buy their home at a discounted price and applies to all tenants whose home is owned by one of the following bodies: housing associations, the armed services or NHS and foundation trusts.
Social Home Buy - This scheme provides increased opportunity for tenants of local authorities and housing associations to access home ownership. Whilst the scheme is voluntary for landlords, they are encouraged to participate, and aims to help social tenants who have a statutory purchase right on their home but cannot afford to buy outright, or (in the case of housing association tenants) who do not have a 'Right to Acquire' because the property does not qualify. The scheme is designed to help social tenants, key workers and other first time buyers to get a first step on the housing ladder - those who can sustain home ownership but cannot afford to buy on the open market. In essence, it enables tenants of participating local authorities and housing associations to buy a lease of their rented home (or in some cases another property) at a discount, but pay only a proportion of the value (25 per cent upwards). In such a shared ownership sale, the equitable interest in the property is shared with the landlord.
The Home Buy module enables an organisation to record, manage and maintain all information pertinent to each application in a dedicated case file. The structure and progression of each case is controlled by any number of custom stages that are predefined by the end user, in line with government legislation and ‘best practice’ recommendations. As a starting point, the system is structured around a number of master stages, dictating the workflow of each case, and are defined as 'Application', 'Eligibility', 'Valuation', 'Offer', 'Appeal', 'Offer Accepted' and 'Completed', with a further 'Delay' categorisation which can be invoked at any point in the process. As a minimum, a custom stage would normally be created for each prescribed master stage, but this customisation can be extended to suit the end user's specific requirements. Once defined, each stage can then be broken down further into any number of chronological or parallel tasks, supporting the completion of each required activity, whether that be to, say, assist tenants in completing their application form, or obtain qualifying tenancy verification details from other social landlords. In short, each contributory factor in the potential sale of a property can all be recorded against the case file - progressive stages and logical tasks alike - presenting a holistic view of pertinent activities and gathered information. Whilst all three schemes supported within the module operate in a consistent way, using the framework of individual case files, the specific rules and requirements surrounding each scheme are maintained separately, particularly around the calculation of eligible discounts.
Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of home buy management, including: