Frequently Asked Questions

Anyone is welcome to leave at any time. To sell back your equity loan (see our Homecoming’s legal set up document for more info,) to the community, you need to find someone who will buy it from you, with the agreement from the community that they can move in. There will hopefully be a waiting list of folks who want to move in – it’s therefore in all our interests to make the project as attractive as possible for new members to buy into. The price the new member pays is agreed by negotiation between the two of you. If there is a big capital gain between what you paid and what you sell it for, beyond any work and investment you have added in, the community may choose to take some of that increase. We are still developing our policies around this, to have it be as fair as possible given possible large price fluctuations in the future. We will prioritise getting clear around this soon, and welcome comments and suggestions from prospective members around this as we develop our strategy.

We would like to live in a community that is diverse and we would love to have a range of ages including elders and children.  Most of the people who have already contacted us about the project are of a similar age range (mid 30’s to 50’s.) We might prioritise having a more diverse age range but we will be taking everyone into consideration for membership.

At the moment none of our members have children so if you’re interested in becoming a member and have children we are open and would want to have some good conversations around this.   

We are very open to people having pets and other animals living with us. Either domestic or otherwise. We would need to have a conversation beforehand to find out what your pets’ needs & quirks are and if they could fit into our co-housing group. Animals can have their own dynamics too so we want to make sure that it’s a good fit for us all and the wildlife we want to support around us.

We do not want money to be the deciding factor as to whether you are invited to join this co-housing group. And, the reality is to buy property and land on Dartmoor we need a significant amount of money. As a minimum you will need to be able to contribute to a monthly group mortgage and the community’s running costs (much like paying rent) – and ideally you will also have capital to invest.

We are registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee – this acts as our legal holding structure. We are using Mutual Home Ownership agreements to make the project affordable, agile and member run. As in a cooperative, we imagine all adult members of the community becoming members of the company, with an equal say in decision making. There is a trial period before potential members become members of the company and therefore before having full objection rights.

Intrigued? Find out more about Mutual Home Ownership here – https://www.communityledhousing.london/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CLHLondon-MHOS.pdf

The land and buildings will all be owned by the company, and members will have a licence agreement to reside on site as part of the equity certificate they own. Members are not leasing from the company, and are not tenants. Members do not hold a freehold or any legal right to a particular property on site – the different spaces on site are allocated in relation to the value of each equity certificate held by members, and this is by community agreement not legal agreement. There is therefore no stamp duty to pay when buying or selling the right to reside in the project, or changing equity certificates and residential spaces between the members.

As a Mutual Home Ownership company (see legal structure answer!) members bring capital to the project when they join, or pay into a communal mortgage while living on site, or both. Each residential unit has an agreed equity value that combines to make up the cost of the whole project. One key aspect of MHO is that when members leave they can get most, or all of their money back – if they find someone else to buy their equity certificate, and fix the price by negotiation with the new member. They may lose or gain money, depending on the interest there is in living in the community. If there is a big capital gain above whatever that member invested in time and money to improve the residential unit, the community may choose to keep some of the capital gain itself when the equity certificate is sold on to the new member. We will be developing a clearer policy around this soon.

Prospective new members need to be agreed to by the community, before they can buy a departing member out.

There will also be a monthly community financial contribution that will be used for communal expenses such as the upkeep of communal buildings, communal services, communal food and equipment purchasing etc.

Find out about our Collective Decision-Making Process here.

We’re mostly looking for places on the East of Dartmoor. This might be further North around Moretonhampstead, or lower down, close to Ashburton and Holne. We would also consider somewhere more central (Widecombe area) if it felt like the right place.

We’re looking to live as between 10 and 20 adults with some children in the mix.  There may be more at some point in the future ~ tbc

We are currently looking at a property owned by people we know in the NE Dartmoor area. This property will go on the market in January 2022. We may not be ready to put in an offer for a while – and they may not be able to sell immediately. 

We are keeping our eyes out for properties in other areas of Dartmoor although our preference is for either NE Dartmoor (around Moretonhampstead/Chagford,) or SE Dartmoor (around Holne/Ashburton) as many of us already have existing wider community in these areas. 

We are exploring creative ideas around all things finance – including securing a ‘bridging loan’ to take the pressure off needing to raise all the money immediately. This could mean that we could buy a property sooner and take a bit more time to bring in members. 

So much of what is possible will become clearer once we know who else will be joining our group and what they have to invest – in terms of both skills, experience, ideas, finance, energy and creative will!

Have a look at our Shortlisting Criteria here

Yes! We are also looking for investors – please look at the ‘How can I support?’ page for more info on this.

We are also considering taking on associate members; people who wish to invest capital in the property as somewhere they can spend time but not live at full time.

First up we see conflict as inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing – albeit generally pretty painful for most of us. We find it helpful to frame it as ‘rupture and repair’ as this flags up the regenerative and transformative process of repair. When we accept rupture as inevitable and turn towards it, whilst drawing on our other Relational Agreements, it is possible for our relationships to deepen and strengthen as a result of conflict. 

We have Relational Agreements in place which we hope will support a healthy enough relationship with conflict/rupture and repair.

We have also co-created a Rupture & Repair document alongside our 4 joining / trial members which lays out the process we intend to follow when there is conflict. 

We do not imagine that this will ensure conflict suddenly becomes easy or pleasurable (although that is our ultimate high dream!) but we hope it will make it less intense for those in the hot seat, and for those wanting to support.

We do not imagine that every conflict will find resolution and our Exclusion Process means we are able to protect the community should anyone be engaging in conflict in ways that are not aligned with our Relational or Community Agreements.

There is a range of community living experience within the core group. Peter set up a woodland eco village in 2000, and lived there for 7 years, Rebecca lived in a community shared house for 2 years, and Claire lived in a land-based buddhist community in the Catalunyan Pyrenees for 2.5 years – and has been living in shared houses for the last 15 years. All of us have also been involved in cultivating and supporting others around regenerative group culture for many years.

Most definitely. Mad for a world, or a lifestyle at the very least, that feels sane, connective, authentic and nourishing. The ‘madness’ is an important part of the risk that’s required to step outside of the norm. We want to break free from conditioned ways of living that promote a sense of separation and which in most cases leave so many of our basic needs unmet and prevent us from flourishing and sharing our gifts in the world.  Most of us have colluded in these separate and disconnective lives such that the over-culture has created and we are choosing something more creative and, you might say, mad…

There’s been a two year journey that began with a different constellation (there were two others at the beginning). They left and then we had another two join us for a few months and they have now stepped back though not entirely. When the latter two joined so did Nat. Claire, Peter and Rebecca have been on the journey for the full two years.

Now that is a big question – and it would be a lot easier not to include it here. And yet we want to turn towards this rather than brush over what a big impact this has on many of us and how we might live together.

We have actually never had a conversation about this as a whole group so we do not have any agreements around this. Generally speaking we all seem to seek to be as conscious as we can within it all and recognise that we are living in times when it is very challenging to know what is ‘true’.

We deeply respect that the virus and pandemic impacts everyone very differently and respect each of our individual choices.

We are acutely aware of how much fear is in the collective field right now – fear that we or our loved ones might get seriously ill or even die from the virus, and/or fear of the extreme control and increased abuse of power the pandemic has evoked. 

We are all committed to staying present to our own respective fears and finding ways to transform this energy into something more life-giving in service to the whole earth community.

We all recognise that these times are inviting us to inquire deeply into the creative tensions around individual needs and freedom and the collective wellbeing of our whole earth community. We are each committed to revealing our own shadows and protective strategies around all this so that each of our decisions, are as clean as is possible – whilst recognising none of us really know what is going on or what the ‘best’ decision is, for ourselves, each other or the whole earth community.

And with that in mind we are each doing what we can to become more able to sit with the increasing uncertainty of our times. We recognise that remembering how to surrender to the unknown and life’s inherent emergent nature is perhaps one of the most vital things we can do as a species right now.

We all feel deeply sad about the polarization, othering, blaming and shaming that is happening as a result of our current context – and the unnecessary pain and suffering this is causing. We each seem to be committed to finding the sweet spot between listening to others and listening to our own inner knowing.

We have a strong desire to grow some of our food. As ever, it will depend on the soil, the weather and climate as well as people available and willing to do this. We don’t believe it’s realistic to plan to grow all of our food (especially on Dartmoor!) but we’ll do what we can with the conditions and with what feels generative to our bodies. We aim to have a polytunnel to support a longer growing season.

We will be using a mix of perennials and annuals, low input and high input species to create an edible landscape around the land, using permaculture design, intensive growing and food forest techniques to create abundance for ourselves and the wildlife.

There are many forms of community, co-housing usually means living alongside each other in residential units with your own kitchen and bathroom, and having some shared spaces and services. We plan to have a mixture of self contained units (flats, bedsits, caravans etc), as well as bedrooms available in a shared house as our flavour of co-housing.

There will be roles that each of us will need to fill in order for the general day to day and also the more focused, time bound tasks to be fulfilled. However, not everyone, for example, is interested in or able to do physical work – either on the land or elsewhere. We also recognise that folks have different skill sets and interests and we intend for this to guide how each of us takes on a role. Nevertheless, having a role of some kind and engaging with one day a week of work is essential for us to keep the community alive and nourished, as well as helping us to connect with each other and the land.