London and Quadrant: Buyers find home at Acton Gardens on Share to Buy

After four years of dating, Sean and Laura made the decision to live together – they found an ideal flat to rent in Ealing and moved in straight away.

Sean says: “We were very happy in our rental flat. We’d been living there for about a year and then one day the landlord told us he was selling the property. It came as a real surprise to us, and we just weren’t sure what to do next.”

Sean and Laura have just bought a 25% share of a one bedroom apartment with a balcony through L&Q’s Shared Ownership scheme at Acton Gardens. Sean explains why they decided to buy through the affordable home ownership scheme.

“We knew that we didn’t want to keep jumping around rentals, and decided we wanted to buy somewhere. We knew we couldn’t afford to buy on the open market, so thought we would look into whether we could qualify for Shared Ownership.”

“My brother and sister have both bought their homes through Shared Ownership and it’s worked really well for them – my sister has even staircased to 100%, so she now owns the whole property. It was seeing them both so happy after buying through the scheme that really sold it to us.”

Sean continues: “We registered on the Share to Buy website and soon came across L&Q’s homes at Acton Gardens. We knew that we wanted to stay in Ealing, so we registered straight away. The process was really straightforward – we got an email about a week or so before the homes launched and easily organised a viewing for the launch weekend. We went to look around and really liked the whole development, so we put our name down straightaway.”

“The eligibility process was nice and easy too – we’d both been living in Ealing for a year and Laura worked in Ealing at the time so we met all the criteria. It was only three months between our first viewing and actually getting the keys!”

After loving their year renting in nearby Ealing, Sean and Laura wanted to make sure that Acton was right for them:

“Before we registered, we did a lot of research into the area to make sure it was a good fit for us. We love being just a ten minute walk from Chiswick – we go there every couple of weekends and it’s such a lovely place to be near.”

Sean says: “We’re just five minutes from Acton Town station – Laura works in central now which is really convenient on the Piccadilly Line. I teach at a school in Paddington and cycle along the canal to and from work every day!”

As well as carefully researching the area, the couple had specific requirements for their future apartment. They describe what they love about their new home:

“Acton Gardens is perfect for what we wanted. One of the most important things for us was the size of the property – we didn’t want to outgrow the place. Our apartment is really spacious; it’s got a great open-plan kitchen and living room, with enough space for a full dining table. There’s a really lovely balcony which is under cover and not on a road, overlooking the courtyard gardens. The balcony is probably our favourite thing about the flat – we’ve eaten dinner outside almost every night since we moved in!”

Happily settled in Acton, Sean and Laura are enjoying life in their new home.

“We won’t be moving anywhere anytime soon! We might consider staircasing but right now it’s too soon to say. Either way, we’re definitely happy staying here for a good few years.”