Advice Needed (Council Housing)

skylight

Wells done!!


Erm... what is the bidding process then?? Round here you are on the list and when you get to the top(ish) you are offered the next most suitable home available for you. Whats bidding got to do with it with your council??

Jaks

Thanks,

The Bidding Process:

What happens in this part of the country is that you are given a banding depending on your need, there are Gold, Silver and Bronze. All the availble council/housing associations for my area are advertised in the local free paper called the Advertiser. Here the houses are in the paper once a fortnight. You are then allowed to "bid" on the properties that are suitable to your needs (number of bedrooms, house, flat, masionette, etc).

By bidding I mean express interest. That means you are given a choice of the area you want to live, you are no longer told where to live.

skylight

Cool!

Our system is that upon your application, you state what area(s) of the town you want to live in and when you get near to the top of the list you are offered whats available to suit. So if you are number 6 from the top but you are the only ones from 6 upwards who need a 4 bed then you would be offered it if one came up in one of the areas you specified - so you could be housed before those at the top of the list.

But in reality, our council has twice as many people on the list as there are properties in the council housing stock! So our chances of ever being re-housed in a bigger home are low. 15 year wait (because we refuse to live in some of the areas in this town, hence pushing our times up!) despite being a family of 7 in a 2-bed.



Anyway - I have detracted totally from the thread! Well done - I am really pleased, especially as it has everything you need for your daughter.

Lightattheend

Congratulations on your new house, may it be all you want and may you be happy and settled in your new home.

Leeds do a similar bidding process but you can bid on up to 3 a week. They have general needs, priority and priority extra instead of bronze, silver or gold.

tigerfeet2006

:TThat's fantastic news Jaks :T.

We have the list system here where you are given points and the more you have the higher up the list you went. In a 6 month period we went from 20th to 3rd and any where in between, up, down, round the houses and back again. Never the same place in the list week to week. I remeber the excitement of being so far up and then when I rang them the following week we were back down again. Though we have been told they are thinking of doing the bidding system, but this was last year and it still hasn't happened :rolleyes:

Skylight, have a check whether there is any new build houses going up in the areas you like and go and see if they are including any social housing in the build (they have to do this now I think.) Then go to the council/HA and ask about them. I phoned the HA every week when we were in your position and really bugged them. I think that is why they offered us this new build when it became available.

Jaks

Its true what you say tigerfeet2006, it seems to get anywhere with the council you have to make a PITA of yourself to get noticed (under the old waiting list system). My in-laws did this years ago and it seems that they always got what they wanted with the council.

With me, I never did that and never got anywhere in all my 15 years on the list until now. How i was for me was that we started out in grotty private flats in the 90's when my I was expecting my son. This pattern went on due to council housing shortages and we ended up in a private rented 3 bedroomed house and was there for 11 years. My then landlord had to give up his business due to ill health and disability. We were faced with the prospect of homelessness and the council told us that we were faced with a B&B or similar. We had to find another private rented house quick (the one we are in now), it was always going to bo too small but we had no choice. Since we have been here it became apparant that my 5 year old had mobility needs (not in a wheelchair but does require a buggy over 3/4 - 1 mile distances. This was the deciding factor that got us accepted in thiss 4 bedroomed council house. If we only needed that house by bedrooms alone we wouldn't have stood a chance, but the advert for this house we are viewing states that applicants requring an adapted property would be given proriety over able bodied applicants in a higher band.

tigerfeet2006

We spent 10 months in B&B with our DC1 before getting the flat we were in before this house. Wasn't the best time, but it could have been worse, the owners were really nice and did a lot for us.

nicky69

Hi on the topic of bidding. I can also bid on 3 properties at a time. I have bidded on 3 houses that are identical and on the same street (new builds). I'm no 5 on the shortlist on the 1st 2 nd and no 3 on the other as hardly anyone bud on the last one due to a technical problem.
Does anyone know if u can be no 1 2 3 ect on more than one property. Ie; cause they are all the same houses could the person on the shortlist who is no 1 could be no1 on all 3 so they get a choice?

sammyjammy

This thread is 11 years old, suggest you start a new one!