Selling your home

Find out what to do if you’re selling your leasehold or freehold home in Hackney.

If you’re selling a home that you bought through the Right to Buy Scheme

If you bought your home through the Right to Buy Scheme on or after 18 January 2005, and want to sell it within 10 years of buying it, you must offer it back to the council first. This is a legal requirement known as the Right of First Refusal.

How to offer your home back to the council

Email service.charges@hackney.gov.uk to let us know you want to offer your home back.

We will then let you know if we want to buy it.

If we don’t want to buy it, then you’re free to sell it on the open market. You or your solicitor will need to get a certificate from us confirming that you offered the property back to us. This is known as a certificate of compliance. It costs £165.

To get the certificate, your solicitor must email service.charges@hackney.gov.uk with:

a written request for the certificate of compliance
proof of payment for the certificate
a copy of the Official Copy of Register (OCR) from the Land Registry

To pay for the certificate you can:

call 020 8356 2299 and quote the property address
do a bank transfer:
- Bank: Lloyds Bank
  Account number: 00634021
  Sort code: 30-00-02
  Payment reference: 003955 and the first line of your address
send a cheque payable to London Borough of Hackney to:
- Homeownership Services
  Hackney Service Centre
  1 Hillman Street
  London
  E8 1DY

Paying back Right to Buy discount if selling your home within 5 years

If you’re selling your home within 5 years of buying it through the Right to Buy Scheme, you have to repay some or all of the discount you got when you bought the property.

If you sell within:

1 year, you will have to repay the whole discount
2 year, you will have to repay 80% of the discount
3 years, you will have to repay 60% of the discount
4 years, you will have to repay 40% of the discount
5 years, you will have to repay 20% of the discount

After 5 years, you can sell without repaying any discount.

Get a seller’s pack

A seller’s pack contains important information about the property for the buyer such as:

estimated and actual service charge bills for the last 3 years
any outstanding amounts due
statement of accounts
building insurance certificate for the property

You or your solicitor can request a seller’s pack from us. It costs £250.

We will send the seller’s pack within 15 working days of receiving payment.

Call 020 8356 2299 to request and make payment for a seller’s pack. You can pay by credit or debit card during the call.

After you’ve sold your home

Let us know once you’ve sold your home

Once you’ve sold your home (or taken out a mortgage on it), you or your solicitor must tell us. This is a legal requirement under the terms of your lease.

Your solicitor must email service.charges@hackney.gov.uk with:

a notice of transfer if you’ve sold the property
a notice of charge if you’ve taken out a mortgage on the property
a certified copy of the Transfer Deed and Mortgage Deed (if applicable)
proof of payment

We charge a £30 registration fee for each notice.

To pay, you can:

call 020 8356 2299 and quote the property address
do a bank transfer:
- Bank: Lloyds Bank
  Account number: 00634021
  Sort code: 30-00-02
  Payment reference: 003955 and the first line of your address
send a cheque payable to London Borough of Hackney to:
- Homeownership Services
  Hackney Service Centre
  1 Hillman Street
  London
  E8 1DY

Let the buyer know about the deed of covenant

If a leasehold or freehold is being transferred, the new homeowner must sign a deed of covenant with the landlord (in this case, the landlord is Hackney Council). This is an agreement confirming that the new homeowner will follow the terms and conditions of the original lease or transfer.

It costs £171.

To get a deed of covenant, you need to make a copy of one of the documents below and fill it in. To make a copy, click ‘File’ then ‘Make a copy’.

Then, email the document to service.charges@hackney.gov.uk asking for the deed of covenant. Your email must include:

full names of the incoming and outgoing leaseholders
a copy of the lease
confirmation of the date of assignment (or proposed date)
property address
official copy of Register (OCR)
completed deed of covenant template

To pay, you can:

call 020 8356 2299 and quote the property address
do a bank transfer:
- Bank: Lloyds Bank
  Account number: 00634021
  Sort code: 30-00-02
  Payment reference: 003955 and the first line of your address
send a cheque payable to London Borough of Hackney to:
- Homeownership Services
  Hackney Service Centre
  1 Hillman Street
  London
  E8 1DY

Find out if you qualify for protections against certain building and fire safety costs

Under the Building Safety Act 2022, some leaseholders are protected from having to pay for certain building safety repairs.

The Leaseholder Deed of Certificate is a legal document you fill in to show whether you qualify for these protections.

Who can complete a certificate

You can only complete the certificate if all of the following apply to you:

you have a lease over 21 years for a single property in a building that’s over 11 meters tall or 5 or more storeys
your lease was granted before 14 February 2022
from 14 February 2022, the property was your only or main home, including if you got the property after this date
from 14 February 2022, you did not own more than 3 properties in the UK