Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) scheme: FOI Release

Information requested

You asked for how many reports have there been of fraud/misuse of people accessing the Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) scheme and how many of these have been followed up and action taken?

Response

The answer to your question is there has been one known case of incorrect information being supplied at the application stage of the OMSE scheme. This one was where the lender highlighted to the OMSE scheme administering agent, Link Housing, that one of the applicants buying actually had another mortgage and property in their name. Funding was pulled from this one just a few days before it settled, so they never bought via the scheme.

There has been 3 instances of OMSE owners in breach of their shared equity agreement by owning a second property. The first one was a person who had purchased an OMSE property and was living in it, but then went on to buy another property without the scheme. When this was investigated at the time, the owner was still living in the OMSE property and there was nothing in the procedures to prevent them from doing this. This loophole has since been tightened up as a result.

The other 2 cases were where the owners purchased a second property and once investigated by Link Housing they both bought out the Scottish Government's equity share. There are currently 10 live and ongoing shared equity enforcement action cases, 1 of which is in relation to an owner with multiple mortgages. We are unable to provide any updates on specific individuals/properties due to privacy and data protection.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.