Renting sheltered housing privately - do they have criterias you have to meet to be eligible?

spaghettibolognese

For the sheltered housing accommodation provided by the local councils, they have a list of criterias you have to meet in order to be eligible to be housed by them and to be placed onto their long waiting list which is just like applying for a council housing whereby the criteria you have to meet is usually that you must be residing in the borough, are homeless/about to become homeless or your current living arrangments puts you in a high priority to be housed by them. However, I'm not sure about the private sheltered ones and wonder if anyone here knows anything about them. Is the rent for private sheltered accomodation significantly higher than the social sheltered housing ones? Do they cost less to rent than a normal place open for all to rent due to the fact that these places are only open to rent for people over a certain age? With the private sheltered ones, am I right in thinking that as long as you are over 55/reached state pensioner age and have the funds to pay the rent, you are eligible to rent from them and there's no other criterias/assessments you have to go through like you do with the social housing ones? What's the main difference between private and social sheltered housing?

Brie

If you are including things like warden assisted flats I understand you do pay extra as you are getting a service.  Essentially you may have extras in your flat such as emergency pull cords that need to be financed and there is often one flat with the warden and the other residents will be subsidising or paying outright for that flat.  

coffeehound

Are you familiar with Rightmove website?  It lets you search for property and it has an option to only show retirement properties which might help you.  Here's a random search for Manchester area under £500

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION^904&maxBedrooms=1&maxPrice=500&radius=5.0&propertyTypes=&includeLetAgreed=false&mustHave=retirement&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&keywords=

The option is under 'Filters' on the right hand top corner.  In there, click on 'Retirement Home' towards the left.  Then click on the green 'Done' button on the right

spaghettibolognese

coffeehound said:

Are you familiar with Rightmove website?  It lets you search for property and it has an option to only show retirement properties which might help you.  Here's a random search for Manchester area under £500

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION^904&maxBedrooms=1&maxPrice=500&radius=5.0&propertyTypes=&includeLetAgreed=false&mustHave=retirement&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&keywords=

The option is under 'Filters' on the right hand top corner.  In there, click on 'Retirement Home' towards the left.  Then click on the green 'Done' button on the right

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

coffeehound

spaghettibolognese said:

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Youre welcome.  

You didn't really get an answer to your question.  This HA flat for over-50s I'm renting as a private tenant costs the same as a private rental around here.  

If you claim HB, you may find that some of the support services bundled into the price are not eligible (things like window cleaning), which could reduce your HB by a few £.

So probably not a lot of difference in rent, based only on this example.  Perhaps it varies more regionally.

luvchocolate

My housing association over 55s flat costs similar to council. 
I pay £340 a month..a similar property private would be around £500