Memorandum of Staircasing

Your housing association's solicitor sends the draft memorandum of staircasing to your solicitor for approval, then your solicitor passes a copy to you for signature.

Your solicitor sends this back to your housing association's solicitor, for signature by the (representative of the) housing association. The housing association's solicitor then sends a copy with both signature back to your solicitor. Your solicitor should provide you with a copy of the doubly-signed memorandum.

Your solicitor should also register the memorandum of staircasing with the Land Registry and confirm with you that this has been done.

If you are paying for your staircasing with cash and your solicitor is satisfied with the provenance of your funds, then you progress to final staircasing completion.

If, however, you are using a mortgage (normally a remortgage) to pay for your staircasing, which most people require, the mortgage in turn has to be approved by the housing association's solicitor. 

The use of a staircasing mortgage to pay for your staircasing is covered in the next article in our staircasing process series (click to read).

Once your funds are in place, then your solicitor proposes a completion date on your behalf and then the housing association's solicitor checks with the housing association that they can complete on that proposed date and you progress to staircasing completion.

The short answer here is possibly!

You'll have no stamp duty to pay if, when you bought your first share (also known as a premium), you opted to pay stamp duty on the full (100%) value of the property in one go, known as a Market Value Election.

If you didn't make a market value election, you only have to pay stamp duty if, after staircasing, you own more than 80% of your property.

For additional information, please read our article Stamp Duty Land Tax for Staircasing (click to find out more) and/or consult HMRC, telephone 0300 200 3510 (opening times: 8.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (closed weekends) if you are still unsure about your individual position. Always bear in mind that ultimately you are yourself responsible for paying any stamp duty which the law states you should pay.

Your solicitor should do this on your behalf and regardless, you are always advised to staple your copy of the memorandum of staircasing to your lease which provides proof of your increased ownership.

There is no legal reason to register the memorandum with the Land Registry but you are well advised to ensure that this is done. A missing or lost memorandum of staircasing, if the staircasing wasn't registered, might create complications when it comes to selling up or having to prove your increased ownership for other purposes, even if ultimately the 'audit trail' (solicitor, housing association, mortgage lender) would prove that you had done so.

Your valuation lasts for 3 months so the whole staircasing should take place within this time frame at the very longest - if it doesn't, you'll have to pay for a valuation retype or a fresh valuation entirely, as well as possibly other fees (solicitors etc.).

If you're using cash/savings, this will be quicker than using a remortgage, because the remortgage process is likely to take perhaps a month or slightly longer. Bearing this difference in mind, the whole process might on average take between 5 and 8 weeks.