For most Shared Ownership owners the answer is yes — you can buy your way up to 100% and become the outright owner. But there's an important exception in a Designated Protected Area, where you may be capped at 80% and can't simply buy the freehold. Here's how it works.
Staircasing is buying more shares in your home. In most cases you can buy up to 100% of the equity and become the outright owner — at which point you stop paying rent. The right to staircase to 100% is a core feature of a standard grant-funded Shared Ownership lease.
Check your specific lease for exactly what happens at 100%.
In a DPA — mostly small rural settlements — the rules are different. The lease must either cap staircasing at 80%, or, if it lets you go higher, require you to sell your share back to the landlord when you sell (Capital Funding Guide).
On top of that, a Shared Ownership house in a DPA is generally excluded from the right to "enfranchise" (buy the freehold) under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, by virtue of the Housing (Shared Ownership Leases) (Exclusion from Leasehold Reform Act 1967) (England) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/2097). So in a protected area you may never be able to own the home outright on the open market in the usual way.
If owning 100% (or the freehold) matters to you, check whether the home is in a Designated Protected Area before you buy. You can check an address or postcode here, and read Shared Ownership staircasing and the 80% cap and what a Designated Protected Area is.
This is general guidance, not legal advice — your lease and the official Homes England map decide your specific case, so take advice from a conveyancer.
Accurate as of June 2026.
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