How you come to own a unit inside a care scheme.

Your lease is to an established operator whose covenant is vetted before launch and published in the data room — never a newly-formed shell. If an operator fails, the lease structure provides for step-in and re-tenanting: the home is re-let to another operator and your lease continues with the replacement. Keystone diversifies operators across the portfolio so no single covenant carries every scheme. No structure removes operator risk entirely — a failed operator can mean an interruption to rent while the home is re-let.

Rent is collected from the operator under the FRI lease and paid to your nominated account, with a statement generated for each payment. Payment frequency and the collection mechanics are set out in the lease and reservation pack for your scheme — confirmed before you exchange, not after.

Expect the usual purchase costs: your own conveyancing solicitor, SDLT/LBTT where applicable (take your own tax advice), and — depending on the scheme — a furnishing pack, a management charge, and any service charge or ground rent. The full cost schedule for each unit is itemised in the data room before you reserve. We do not publish indicative cost figures until they are contractually fixed.

Units are sold on 250-year leasehold titles — except Greenock, which is heritable title (outright Scottish ownership, no lease term at all). The minimum investment is the entry unit price of the scheme you choose (shown to certified investors). You pay in three stages: a reservation fee by card, the exchange deposit to an SRA-regulated solicitor's escrow account, and the balance at completion.

Your deposit is held by an SRA-regulated solicitor as stakeholder and released only against verified build milestones — it is never handed to the developer up-front. The contract includes a longstop completion date with return provisions if the scheme does not complete. The named solicitor, the milestone schedule and the longstop terms for your scheme are in the reservation pack.

Honestly: off-plan resales before completion depend on demand and take time — buy with the intention of completing. After completion you own an individually-titled, income-producing asset; the designed exit is a sale into institutional demand once the asset is stabilised, and you can also sell on the open market at any time. We don't promise a buy-back, because promises like that are only as good as the balance sheet behind them.

Two Keystone products are engineered for it: commercial interests in the registered care homes (HMRC's care-institution exemption — written tax opinion in progress, not yet confirmed) and rooms in the Greenock hostel (the hotel/inn/similar-establishment exemption, per our in-house analysis — no personal-use rights, ever). But 'SIPP compliant' is never self-certified: your own administrator's technical team assesses the asset and their written acceptance decides, and HMRC has the final say. Pension purchases are unfurnished (furniture is taxable in a pension) and complete through your scheme administrator, not online. The self-contained apartments are residential dwellings and cannot be held in a pension without tax charges of up to ~55%. Keystone does not give pension advice and never suggests transferring a pension — speak to your own regulated adviser.

At completion, when the operator lease commences — not while the scheme is being built. Between exchange and completion (typically 12–24 months) you receive no income; your deposit sits in escrow earning its protection, not a return. We say this plainly because off-plan products that blur it are the ones that end badly. Greenock is the exception: a standing asset in established use, sold ready to go — contracted rent runs from purchase completion, with no build gap.