Housing Register

Bidding on a Property, Housing Banding and Waiting Times

You’re responsible for placing the bids unless you require our automated bidding system to bid for you. If you need a particular area or have specific needs, you should only bid for the properties that you feel will be suitable.

Your account will show you all properties that the system thinks may be suitable based on size alone.

You’ll find the criteria for prioritising a property in the property’s advert.

The criteria for prioritising a property will in most cases be stated on the full property advert in the form of an advert icon or as text stating the prioritised group (although at times the reason simply sits within our Allocations Policy).

You might not be shown a property or prioritised regardless of your housing band award for the following reasons:

• You did not have a rural location connection to the village concerned i.e. you have not lived or worked in the village where the property in question is located.
• You did not meet the age criteria i.e. a property has an age restriction.
• We have no confirmation on file that you require the adaptations available within a property i.e. you do not require a flush floor shower or wheelchair access.

We can’t answer enquiries regarding specific properties and shortlists. You can access this information via your Kent Homechoice account.

We are not notified in advance of properties advertised on the Kent Homechoice website and will not be able to answer any queries about upcoming properties.

In Swale, each housing association is responsible for the shortlisting of their properties and contacting successful applicants.

Automated bidding

You can use automated bidding in certain circumstances, including where:

• you have limited access to the internet
• you’re not confident using the internet and you don’t have support to help you

We’ll set up automated bidding for you if we think you would benefit from it.

The automated bids are made by the system on your behalf and will bid for any property of the correct size. We can also tailor the bids to match your area requirements.

You will only be offered a property if it is deemed suitable when matched against the information on your application.

Any applicant can ask for automated bidding.

Housing banding

There is a far greater demand for social housing than there is supply. It is unlikely for those in housing band C or below to succeed in the foreseeable future despite having housing needs and so we recommend that you solve your housing needs in the private sector whenever possible.

There are many applicants who contact us regarding their options as they cannot afford the private sector and are not having success on the housing register. We do not have a solution for this, and all that we can recommend is that you continue to consider both options and manage the situation as effectively as possible. There are many households that move to an area where housing is more affordable.

if you disagree with your banding

You can contact your Housing team if you feel that your assessment is incorrect in accordance with our allocations policy.

Please understand that unless your medical or welfare needs, or overcrowding are extremely severe, we will not be able to raise your housing band above Housing band C.

It is likely that we will require evidence of the severity of your situation from an independent professional before we can consider any reassessment. If you require adaptations, we may ask that I

If you’re a housing band:

• C or below, you should explore the private sector as it is unlikely that we will be able to assist you within the foreseeable future. housing band
• A or B then it is more likely that we will be able to assist you, and this should be within a few years

The higher the priority of your housing banding, the less time you should need to wait.

Finding alternative housing through the housing register could take months or even many years regardless of the priority that you have due to stock availability if you require:

• a specialist property
• to live in a particular area
• a property type that’s in low supply, such as a wheelchair accessible home or a property with four or more bedrooms .

For an indication of your position, you should login to visit your Kent Homechoice account   which will show feedback in relation to past bids.