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 social 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 areas outside the Borough, and people interested in low-cost home ownership schemes to which Kingston Council has nomination rights.

As at April 2011, there were approximately 8,324 applications of all types registered.  Demand for social rented housing is very high and we received over 1,500 new applications in the previous year.

If you want to find out what your priority is likely to be for social rented housing, use the link below to complete our on-line self assessment questionnaire. You can also view the priority bands for rehousing.

Choice Based Lettings and the Kingston Housing Partnership

In addition to maintaining the Housing Register, Allocations Officers decide who is offered every permanent council property in the Borough that becomes available to rent. When doing this we ensure that the best use is made of each available home, and offer it to the applicant with the highest priority who bids through Choice Based Lettings, according to the Council's Housing Allocations Policy.

The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and 9 local housing associations use a joint Housing Register to make sure that everyone who applies is considered for all properties which the 10 organisations have available. This is known as the Kingston Housing Partnership. The Council maintains the Kingston Housing Register on behalf of the Partnership.

Selection of Tenants

We select tenants from the Housing Register for the majority of housing association homes in the Borough which become available to rent, including all new and acquired properties. We also select tenants for properties becoming available in other boroughs in the South West London Housing Partnership, mainly in the London Borough of Croydon.  We let 322 council and 122 housing association properties during the year from 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010.