Sage Homes wants the lender clause on 70 affordable homes at Tiltman Avenue, Swanscombe, rewritten so a bank could sell them freely after three months. Comments to 11 September.
The housing association that owns the affordable homes on the former Croxton and Garry site in Swanscombe has asked to change the legal agreement that protects them. Ebbsfleet Development Corporation is taking comments until 11 September. (Ebbsfleet Development Corporation planning register, EDC/26/0136)
The estate sits off Tiltman Avenue, about four miles east of Dartford town centre, between London Road and the Swanscombe peninsula.
The register describes the request as being made “on financial viability grounds”. The applicant’s own letter tells a narrower story. No affordable home would change hands, and none would be lost. What would change is what a bank could do with them if the housing association ever defaulted on its borrowing.
What is being asked
Sage Homes RP Limited, through solicitors Devonshires, wants to delete the “mortgagee sale provisions” in the affordable housing schedule of the section 106 agreement signed on 12 December 2018. It proposes replacing them with what it calls the industry standard wording. Under the new clause, a lender that took possession of the homes would have to:
- give Ebbsfleet Development Corporation written notice that it intended to sell
- use “reasonable endeavours” for three months to sell the homes to another registered provider, or to the corporation, for at least the sum outstanding on the loan
- after those three months, be free to sell the homes “free from the provisions of this Deed”, meaning without any affordable housing restriction
The letter explains why. A lender values homes that must stay affordable for ever at roughly a third of open market value. Homes that could be sold with a sitting tenant are valued at roughly two thirds. Sage says the change “will not change the existing and current use of the property” while it or any other housing association owns it, and that a default is “extremely unlikely”. (Cover letter from Devonshires, 14 August 2026, in the application documents)
The letter lists 64 plots on Tiltman Avenue and Whiting Avenue that Sage owns or is taking over from Sage Housing Limited.
The homes involved
The outline permission for the former Croxton and Garry site was granted in December 2018 for up to 220 homes, later rising to 232. The 2018 committee report records that the developer agreed 30 per cent affordable housing, split equally between affordable rent and shared ownership. (EDC/17/0110 committee report)
By 2023 the affordable element was fixed at 70 homes. An officer’s report that year approved a shuffle of tenures between apartment blocks, leaving 40 shared ownership homes and 30 for affordable rent. (EDC/23/0003 officer’s report, March 2023)
This clause has been loosened once before
The same paragraph was varied in 2021, at the request of the original developer, Bellway Homes. The original agreement required a lender to take commercially prudent steps “and every reasonable effort” over three months to sell to another housing association. The 2021 deed changed that to “reasonable endeavours”. The corporation’s officer wrote at the time that its lawyer accepted this was “arguably a weakening of the requirement”, but that it followed wording proposed by the Securitisation Working Group and was “becoming commonplace”. (EDC/20/0090 officer’s delegated report, approved 13 July 2021)
The 2026 request goes further. It spells out that once the three months are up, the affordable housing provisions “shall determine absolutely”.
Who decides
The corporation is the planning authority for the Ebbsfleet area, so it will decide. Dartford Borough Council is a party to the 2018 agreement and has been asked for its views by 11 September; the borough has logged the consultation as 26/00983/EDCCON. The corporation’s own target date for a decision is 17 September. (EDC/26/0136 important dates)
What it means for you
- If you rent or part-own one of the 70 homes, nothing changes to your tenancy or lease under this request. The clause only bites if Sage’s lender ever takes possession.
- If you are on Dartford’s housing register, the borough holds nomination rights to these homes under the 2018 agreement. That is the interest the council will be weighing when it replies.
- To comment, email edcplanning@ebbsfleetdc.org.uk quoting EDC/26/0136 before 11 September, or use the corporation’s register. Our Dartford planning applications page explains how section 106 agreements work.
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