Stable and affordable homes controlled by residents
Collective Ownership focuses on stability and resident control to combat the insecurity and disempowerment faced by renters.
Benefits
Stable housing as the foundation for every life.
- Rights and responsibilities similar to home ownership.
- Stable rents independant of the market.
- Democratic control over the homes and the community.
- Sustainability and energy improvements in your hands.
Affordability
A stable "cost rent".
- Rents tied to real costs, not market speculation.
- Initial rents depend on the cost of capital. Donations or favourable investment keeps it low.
- Affordable rents maintained over time.
- No deposit, though residents can invest.
Step by Step
From first interest to a home you control
Register your interest
Tell us where you want to live, household size and rough timeline.
Form or join a co-op
Either join an existing one, or come together with others to form a new one.
Property purchase
Suggest properties or schemes that may be suitable. We will purchase properties in consultation with your co-op.
Groups can help raise investment for a particular property.
Sign the lease
Collective Ownership leases the property to your co-op. You have a tenancy agreement as a resident-member in your co-op.
Move in & take part
Decide how your home is run.
Are you an individual household, or already a co-op group?
Individual households
Tell us about your housing needs, experiences, and apsirations. We’ll connect you with others in your area. Occasionally our member co-ops may be looking for new resident-members.
Already a co-op group
If you are already a formed group contact us to meet and apply for membership. Our guides and resources will help you set-up and start looking for properties.
What is a Housing Co-operative?
A housing co-operative is a group of residents who collectively manage their housing through their own democratically run and not-for-profit legal organisation (incorporated as a Co-operative Society).
Every resident is both a tenant and a member of the organisation who owns the homes. This means you’re effectively your own landlord, together with your neighbours – you democratically make decisions about repairs, maintenance, who moves in, and how the co-op is run.
Because all members are tenants, and all tenants are members, there is no incentive to charge more rent than necessary to cover costs in maintaining and improving the homes and the community, unlike generating a profit for an external landlord.
Why become a member of Collective Ownership?
The Collective Ownership Society (COS) offers a fundamentally different approach to housing: one based on co-operation, not competition and which gives you access to a home your control.
When you join as a member co-operative, you’re not just solving your own housing problem – you’re strengthening an entire movement. Each new member co-op makes Collective Ownership stronger:
- More member co-ops strengthen the entire entity, allowing us to purchase more properties more quickly
- A growing network strengthens our profile with funders, lenders, and policymakers, furthering the mission to provide secure, co-operative housing at scale
- Each housed group generates revenue that helps house the next co-operative
- Your participation builds the evidence base for an alternative housing tenure
Joining as a member does not guarantee Collective Ownership will be able to purchase a property for your co-op, as this will depend on project viability and available resources.
Although you may not be housed immediately, by joining as a member, you actively contribute to speeding up acquisitions for all groups. This is co-operation in action – working together to ensure everyone has access to secure, co-operative housing.
How can my group or co-op become a member?
We are happy to talk to groups before they become formal members. Contact us with a few details, especially if you have a property in mind or savings to invest. If you are yet to form your co-op, we can provide guidance on incorporation. An incorporated co-op can become a Collective Ownership member as a prospective tenant for a period of two years, allowing time to find and secure a property, by completing the Membership Application form.
Can we set up a housing co-op on our own?
Yes, but it has proven to be difficult. New co-ops face high property prices, can’t access good financing terms and face expensive, piecemeal funding. Much of their rent goes to servicing high-cost debt rather than keeping housing affordable.
A big driver to devising Collective Ownership was for more renters to be able to take control of their own homes, by making it easier to set up a housing co-op.
Collective Ownership is well placed to provide the financial infrastructure and scale that individual co-ops lack, securing better financing to move quickly on property purchases, covering feasibility cost and reinvesting surpluses into acquiring more homes for new co-op groups.
Do we need money to work with Collective Ownership?
No, but if your group has access to some capital that can be invested, or access to a particular grant or donation, this can be ringfenced for a property to be leased to your co-op. Depending on the amount and the terms, it can help make a project viable or make the starting rents lower. See investment pages.
Why can’t our co-op own the property directly?
In a way your co-op owns the property as a member of Collective Ownership, along with all other member co-ops. Mutualising ownership in this way, makes for a stronger entity and can facilitate growth and replication.
Where individual co-ops own their properties, the potential benefits of asset ownership are locked within the individual co-op rather than expanding affordable housing and resident-control to others. Even if a new co-op has plans for expanding as the mortgage is paid down, this is typically decades away, when the membership, capacity and ambition may have changed.
With Collective Ownership each project contributes to changing the market as a whole and not just their own housing situation.
Where can I learn more?
Downloand the full set of FAQs for new groups of residents, or
Contact us with any specific questions
Stories
The rental experience
Become a resident
After you fill in this form, your expression of interest will be added to our database. We will contact you about relevant opportunities based on your answers and with major updates related to Collective Ownership.
We will use this to email you about opportunities. If there are multiple people in your group, please fill out this form for each person who wishes to be kept up to date. By filling this out you consent to be on our email list, you can unsubscribe at any time.
