Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) scheme threshold prices and application window: FOI release

Information requested

• Is there a particular reason why the 2015-16 Registers of Scotland data set is used to determine how the OMSE threshold prices are determined, despite being almost eight years old and pre-COVID pandemic, instead of a more recent one?

And:

• How long the application window was for the OMSE scheme 2024/2025, and if this has always been the same or if it differs from year to year?

Response

The answer to your question is as stated in my response dated 13th November 2024, OMSE thresholds are uprated each year in line with overall house price inflation, for each local authority area, as reflected in the Registers of Scotland data.

The matching of data between the Registers of Scotland house price data and information from the Scottish Assessors on the number of bedrooms is a resource intensive exercise. We will consider repeating this exercise to re-base the house price data by bedroom size, but will also need to take into account other priorities and available resources.

With regard to the OMSE application windows, for 2024/25 the OMSE scheme application window was open from 20 June 2024 to 19 July 2024. This was due to the budget being fully utilised by all applications received in that time frame. In previous years the application window was open for the full financial year.

About FOI

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