bidding on Council Housing.

sniggings

eliviajen wrote: »

i rang recently asking about whether it was worthwhile bidding when i obviously wasnt going to get anywhere (we are band C - adequately housed...) and the woman said that if you finished within the top 30, you still have a chance as they then look down the list and select the most appropriate candidate.

some of the things they look for are if the house is too big for your needs (of if you WILL grow into it in the forseeable future), if you have asbo's, rent arrears, problem neighbours, complaints, on witness protection ect.

so at least 10-15 people of that 25 could be taken off just in rent arrears, being bad neighbours. and then they could offer it to a couple of people and they could then turn it down.

another thing our woman told us was that it looks better to be bidding than not as that counts as a positive!!!

We are bidding as we are in a 2 bed flat, with 2 children of different sexes the oldest is almost 7 - the youngest is only 2. we both work and do not get any housing benefit so the bedroom tax wont affect us, we just want seperate bedrooms if we can. we bid on at least one house a month, most of the time 2 bedroomed (but local knowledge means that we guess which would be sutible to split into 3 bedrooms....)

dont give up hope, the more you bid the better your chances!! more people probaly get rehoused each week than people joining i would imagine so over time you should get there - Good Luck!! x

cheers for that, it has given me a bit more hope, will keep bidding!

sniggings

mrs_motivated wrote: »

Also whilst there may be 25 people in front of you. The property may be allocated to number 8 or 9. If for example people are bidding on properties and don't meet the eligibility criteria (which often happens on certain schemes)

thanks, I don't think you can bid if you do not meet the criteria, I guess people could lie, as I think thy ask for proof of eligibility once the offer has been made, as I have not been asked yet to backup my application with proof of the claims I have made.

sniggings

well I rang and asking how the bidding works but am still non the wiser.

They say that when I bid on a property, (and you can only bid if you are eligible for it), if 50 bids are in front of me then it means those 50 people have first refusal to the property but when I reminder them that in their Q&A section on their site it states that once bidding is closed then there is a short list drawn up out of the bidders based on the criteria of the property? either I'm not getting it or they were unsure of the bidding process themselves so couldn't explain it correctly but how can they know when I bid that 50 are ahead of me if the criteria is only looked at when bidding closes and a short list drawn up, it also says that the first person on the list may not be offered the property? I'm still confused.

carefullycautious

I think in some areas it is easier if you are downsizing than upsizing.

If you look at the recent let's page over the time you are bidding you will see that your place in the bid gets to a lower number. This happened with me.

Each week I started at a high number in a queue and over the months of bidding seemed to go from 50 to say 30 then 16 until I was offered a property. I was amazed that the housing officer even knew which bids I had withdrawn from (some areas had bad public transport and were too far out) she asked me why I had withdrawn from some properties.

As I had been in queues of 150 -200 bidding for same property I knew how lucky I was to have eventually got somewhere (there would have been far more bidding as not everyone is online)

I was downshifting so this helped with points etc.
I was also told to keep bidding as they can see that you are serious and not being too picky with what you will or will not take plus it keeps your name coming up regularly.

Good luck it is worth perusing do try home swapper as well

carefullycautious

sniggings wrote: »

thanks, I don't think you can bid if you do not meet the criteria, I guess people could lie, as I think thy ask for proof of eligibility once the offer has been made, as I have not been asked yet to backup my application with proof of the claims I have made.

I can't see how you can lie as I had housing officers and termination of tenancy officers out as that is what you will be doing if you are trying to transfer. You terminate one tenancy and take on another.

Do make sure that you retain your existing tenancy as we were told that our tenancy could be changed luckily it didn't.

sniggings

carefullycautious wrote: »

I can't see how you can lie as I had housing officers and termination of tenancy officers out as that is what you will be doing if you are trying to transfer. You terminate one tenancy and take on another.

Do make sure that you retain your existing tenancy as we were told that our tenancy could be changed luckily it didn't.

I'm in private rent.

When I said lie, I just meant I thought the proof of application, such as a tie to the area was only asked for if a property was offered but have just found out today that they need it before hand, so I should move up a bit more as I have a tie to one area where family live and have lived in another area for over 5 years so have a tie to that area too, which all helps, I'll take that proof in tomorrow.

mrs_motivated

Can you tell us which landlord you are applying to and I will look at the scheme and try to explain it to you.

The first thing to establish are you in the correct band, what type of property you are eligible for and then I might be able to help more.

sniggings

mrs_motivated wrote: »

Can you tell us which landlord you are applying to and I will look at the scheme and try to explain it to you.

The first thing to establish are you in the correct band, what type of property you are eligible for and then I might be able to help more.

cheers but I don't really want to give out too much info on here, I'm going to hand in tomorrow, proof of a connection to my area and the area my family live in, so I will try again face to face and hopefully it will make sense.This should get me up the list slightly as I'm the lowest of the low at the minute :eek:

It just has me confused how they say the bidders are in order of priority at the time of bidding but then go on to say the list is drawn up at close of bidding based on the property criteria!

Edit oops it's Saturday tomorrow, make that hand in proof on Monday.

CKhalvashi

mrs_motivated wrote: »

Also whilst there may be 25 people in front of you. The property may be allocated to number 8 or 9. If for example people are bidding on properties and don't meet the eligibility criteria (which often happens on certain schemes)

I've seen one property issued (of 218) to 46, then 91, then 144. There are many factors that can influence the decision.

CK

mrs_motivated

No problem, I do understand.

Try and find out the average offer waiting time for your band. It appears from what you are saying the scheme has a local connection criteria. Try and back this up with evidence of why this local connection is important.

Good luck