Choice-Based Lettings – Assessing Housing Need

Here’s the latest in our series of posts explaining how our Choice-Based Lettings housing allocations work:

By law, we must give ‘reasonable preference’ to certain groups. We must give priority to:

• people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness through no fault of their own and have unmet housing needs
• social housing tenants who are under occupying their home
• people who are living in unsatisfactory housing conditions and have unmet housing needs.

We consider people to have unmet housing needs if they have housing needs that cannot be met by other housing options available. For example, an applicant with disabilities whose housing needs can only be met in social housing, because it is not possible to make essential adaptations to their current home, and there is no other suitable housing available in the area. For owner occupiers, we will consider any equity in their home and whether they can reasonably buy another property to meet their needs.

If you fall into the above ‘reasonable preference’ groups, we will confirm your needs by completing a housing options assessment with you.

Please keep following for more information on our Choice-Based Lettings and Allocation Policy

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Choice-Based Lettings – What is it all about?

Choice-Based Lettings is our housing register. Anyone 16 years old or over can apply for social housing from the Council and its partners – Hillcrest Housing Association, Caledonia Housing Association and Blackwood Housing Association. We also work closely with other housing associations across the county. Even though they are not part of the partnership, they do take nominations from us to house applicants from our list, or advertise their properties on our site which allows those on our list to bid for those properties.

We want to give applicants choice about where they want to live, so we publicise the details of available homes and applicants can choose whether or not to bid (register interest) for the property. Where we have specialist supported housing or properties with particular adaptations, we try to match these to the most suitable applicant from the housing register, in the first instance. 

Please follow this Blog for more on our Choice Based Lettings and Allocation Policy

Angus Homefinder Problem with Change of Circumstances Form

We have noticed that some applicants cannot report a change of circumstances in their housing application and our contractor is working to fix this issue.

We will update you when the problem is fixed.

Thank you for your continued patience.

If you have an urgent enquiry about your application, please contact our AngusHomefinder team at AngusHomefinder@angus.gov.uk or call our ACCESSLine at 03452 777 778.

Angus Homefinder Update

Our Angus Homefinder contractor contacted us this morning to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the latest update to the system.

They have advised us that all reported issues have now been resolved. If you have a live application and are still unable to get on to the system to bid for properties, please contact our Angus Homefinder team at AngusHomefinder@angus.gov.uk or call our ACCESSLine at 03452 777 778.

Our teams would also like to extend our thanks for your patience during this time.

Angus Homefinder Problem for Yahoo Email Addresses

We have been notified of some customers not receiving an email after requesting new passwords for their housing application on Angus Homefinder. We asked our contractor to investigate there may be an issue for customers with Yahoo email addresses. There can be a significant delay in receiving these emails.

Our contractor will investigate further and are hopeful they will fix the issue soon.

If you’ve requested a new password, please continue to check your inbox and junk mail if you haven’t received it.

If you require access to your account to bid on properties and cannot, please contact us at  AngusHomefinder@angus.gov.uk or contact ACCESSLine at 03452 777 778.

Thank you for your patience.

Update: Angus Homefinder login issue has now been fixed

Yesterday’s Angus Homefinder login issue has now been resolved so users should be able to login normally. The Team is monitoring the situation to make sure there’s no repeat.

Angus Homefinder Login Problem

We are aware of a major problem with the Angus Homefinder Choice Based Lettings system. If you are trying to log in to bid on properties, you will get the message – “Not a valid user.” Please be patient, our contractor is aware of the issue and is working on it urgently. We will provide updates as soon as we have them.

Reminder – Angus Common Allocations Policy Review Closes Soon

Just a reminder that our allocations policy consultation survey closes on Monday 30 May.

Thank you to all who responded so far.  If you have not yet done so, we would welcome your views.

Click here to get to the survey

We appreciate your participation.

Your opinion matters – please help us with our Angus Common Allocations Policy Review

We introduced the current Common Allocations Policy in November 2020 along with the introduction of our new online housing application and choice-based lettings system.

We and our Common Housing Register partners (Hillcrest Homes, Caledonia Housing Association Ltd., and Blackwood Homes) want to know what you think of our current Common Allocation Policy.

Our Common Housing Allocations Policy sets out:

• how to register for housing;

• how we assess and prioritise bids for housing based on housing need;

• how we advertise available homes to meet the needs of housing applicants on our Common Housing Register.

As part of the review we are consulting widely with individuals, tenants, current applicants and staff. Our aim is to ensure that the policy is open, transparent, fair and easy to understand.

We welcome your input and would like to invite you to complete a short survey on Angus Common Allocations Policy as part of the consultation to help inform our policy review.

The survey closes on Monday 30th May 2022.

Thank you for your participation.

Angus Homefinder – Understanding Household Types – Bid or Match

When we process your application, we will tell you whether your household type is BID or MATCH. This lets you know whether you can bid on properties or will be matched to a property.

Applicants who need supported or fully adapted housing will be MATCH applicants and will be matched to a property without the need to bid.

Applications from people in an institution (e.g. hospital, prison or care facility), who cannot bid will be matched to suitable accommodation when this becomes available.

We know that our allocation policy doesn’t cover everyone’s circumstances. The policy allows for exceptional circumstances and discretion to be applied where you need to move or be housed urgently. In some cases, you may be matched to a property if we need to offer you housing quickly and a suitable property becomes available.

All other applicants are BID applicants and will have to bid for available properties.