When Sophie Garrett decided she wanted to find someone to share the cosy cottage in Suffolk she used as a second home only every other weekend, she thought it would be easy.

“I felt I didn’t deserve this beautiful cottage lying idle in the middle of the town,” she says. “I decided what I really needed was someone to share it.” Despite asking all her friends and trawling the internet, however, she couldn’t find any takers. After several months, she reluctantly gave up the hunt.

Yet Garrett, 43, a former IT consultant, did not give up on the idea. “It made me realise the need for a forum, in which you could not only let a second home on a cost-sharing basis, but ‘meet’ potential co-owners,” she says.

The result? In July, she launched a website, Yours2share.com, aimed at helping people to live their property – or jewellery, art, even classic car – dreams for a fraction of the cost.

Popularised in America, fractional ownership – of anything from property to planes – is becoming increasingly common in this country. Last month, more than 10,000 would-be sharers visited the Fractional Life Expo, a two-day event in London organised by Piers Brown, the founder of Fractionallife.com, a site that advertises commercial schemes for sharing everything from houses to helicopters.

“You don’t necessarily have to own all of everything these days to have a good time,” Brown explains. “Does it really make sense to go out and buy a place lock, stock and barrel when you’re only going to use it a few times a year?” Unlike the oft-derided time-share schemes, which became synonymous with scandals in the 1970s and 1980s, fractional ownership means that you actually own part of the asset, so you share in any capital gains.

What if none of the established schemes caters to your tastes or needs? That’s where Yours2share comes in, says Garrett. She claims her site has already started to bring together people who have much in common.

One such is Caroline Hawkins, who lives in an ancient manor house on a small estate in Wiltshire. She posted an advertisement on the site two months ago, looking for long-term, part-time sharers for a picturesque three-bedroom farm cottage in the grounds. It worked: Hawkins, 51, is setting up a deal with two potential tenants from London, who will pay £1,250 each for 60 days’ use a year. The money from the two sharers will help to pay for the restoration of the historic gardens on the estate, but Hawkins is still looking for prospective sharers. She hopes to fill the cottage for nine months a year.

“I think that, for most people, having a weekend cottage is quite a luxury,” she says. “It’s much better to have some sort of arrangement where people can share, which benefits both us and the tenant.”

Intrigued by the notion of finding the holiday home of my dreams for a fraction of the cost, I visited the site and posted an ad: “Wanted: Joint buyers for holiday cottage in north Cornwall. Must not mind a bit of sand on the stairs.” While waiting for an answer, I started to browse.

Unfortunately, there was nothing in north Cornwall, but I was intrigued by the prospect of buying a quarter of a house in Port Grimaud, in the south of France. For £270,000, I could use the four-bedroom fisherman’s cottage – and a 50ft yacht – for a few months a year. The three current owners are much older than me, but we wouldn’t be there at the same time.

“We’ll divide up the year between the four of us,” says Graham Price, 57, a psychologist from Surrey, who has already bought the property with two others and wants to spread the costs further. “We don’t want people who are inflexible. Decisions as a syndicate are easy as long as people are not too limited or demanding.”

So, how do you buy a property with a bunch of strangers? “You need to be like-minded,” Garrett says. “Fundamentally, it means things like similar values. If you each have three children, the damage you allow them to do to your house has to be roughly the same.”

In addition, you need to consider willingness to pay. “You’re going to have things that go wrong or need replacing. Do you want Rolls-Royce work or the cheapest of chips? If you’re not of the same mind, you could come to blows.”

When you post your advertisement, be specific about what you want from a property and potential sharers. Talk things through before signing on the dotted line – and, most important, take legal advice.

So, has the site enabled Garrett to find a taker for her own cottage? Sadly, not. Giving up her job to start the site has meant she has had to let it out full-time to make ends meet.

Easy pieces

www.yours2share.com A good place to find property to share, or people to share it with

www.fractionallife.com A platform for companies offering fractional ownership of everything from cars to corporate hospitality

www.affordablemillionaire.com Established schemes to buy into, and the opportunity for individuals to sell their property fractionally

www.theownersclubint.com Fractional-ownership properties in Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States

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