Applying for Council Housing

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The Kingston Housing Register

The Allocations Team maintain a register of all people wishing to obtain affordable rented housing in the borough.  This is known as the Kingston Housing Register.

The Housing Register includes existing council and housing association tenants in the borough who wish to move home, Kingston residents wishing to obtain affordable rented housing in Kingston or in other parts of the country, and people interested in low-cost home ownership schemes to which Kingston Council has nomination rights.

As at March 2008, there were just over 7000 applicants of all types registered, with over 1,500 new applications received in the last year.  As a result, much of our time is taken up with registering, updating and checking applications, and dealing with enquiries from applicants about their rehousing prospects, as well as gathering statistics on the demand for housing in the borough from the information held.

Choice Based Lettings and the Kingston Housing Partnership

In addition to maintaining the Housing Register, we have the crucial role of deciding who gets offered every permanent council property in the borough that becomes available to rent.  When doing this we must ensure that the best use is made of each available property, and will offer it to the applicant (with the highest priority) who bids through Choice Based Lettings according to the Council's Housing Allocations Policy.

We have developed a working arrangement with the landlords owning the majority of rented housing association properties in Kingston. This is known as the Kingston Housing Partnership.

Selection of Tenants

We select tenants from the Housing Register for all general purpose housing association properties in the Partnership becoming available to rent in the borough, including all new and acquired properties.  We also have rights to nominate new tenants from the Register for about 75% of all other housing association vacancies in the borough (these are mainly sheltered housing for older people).

We let 314 council and 179 housing association properties during the previous financial year.