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Who can apply for social housing

To join the Council's Housing Needs Register you must be over the age of 16 and meet both the eligibility and the qualifying criteria relating to local connection, financial resources and behaviour as outlined in the Housing Allocation Policy.   If you do not meet this criteria you will not be entitled to join the Housing Needs Register.

Eligibility criteria

Certain people who are subject to Immigration Control and certain people from abroad (as defined by the Secretary of State) may be considered as not eligible to be allocated accommodation by a local authority and are therefore not eligible to be on the Housing Needs Register.

Qualifying and non qualifying criteria

Local Connection

Applicants will need to have a local connection to the borough. You have a local connection if you live or work in the borough and have done so for the last two years. However there are some limited exceptions to the Local Connection criteria for armed forces personnel, homeless applicants, Right to Move applicants and those that have special circumstances such as domestic abuse.

You may not qualify to join the Housing Needs Register if:

• you or the joint applicant has housing related debts which you are not paying
• you or any member of your household has engaged in antisocial or criminal behaviour
• your income or financial resources are too high.

See here further information on the qualifying criteria.

A copy of the Housing Allocation Policy is available here or from Housing Services.