Who can apply and what happens after I apply

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• Information guide on applying for a council or housing association home in Kingston
• Who can apply and what happens after I apply

Anyone over 16 who needs to live in the borough can apply to join the Kingston Housing Register. If you are under 18, we will require an adult or organisation to act as a guarantor for the rent until you reach the age of 18 if you are offered a property.

Priority is given to Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames residents, so if you live outside the borough, your application will be placed in Band D regardless of your housing situation or any medical problem. This means that you are less likely to be successful in bidding for available general purpose homes. However, older people may be successful in bidding for sheltered housing for which there is a lower level of demand.

Once you have filled in your form and returned it to the Kingston Housing Partnership we use it to assess your priority for housing. We use a banding scheme to rank your application according to your housing circumstances, including any medical conditions which are affected by your housing. If your application is accepted, we then send you a registration letter advising you of your priority for housing under the Council’s Allocations Policy. You will also receive a ‘User Guide to Choice Based Lettings’ to explain how to bid for available homes - see related link below.

We will only reject your application if you are not eligible for housing under the terms of the Housing Act 1996, as amended by the Homelessness Act 2002. This may apply to anyone in the following groups:

• Certain categories of asylum seekers and people returning to live in this country.
• People who have lived in the country less than five years.
• Some people who have lost a tenancy because of unacceptable behaviour or have a known history of similar behaviour.

If you fall into any of these categories, we will write to you to explain your position in more detail.

We will normally only visit you if you have a very high priority for housing, but you can enquire about the position of your application at any time.