What happens if you're offered social housing while renting privately?

[LemonStork]

I want to move into a housing association property (more expensive than council, but easier to get a place and more secure than private renting). Was recently waitlisted for a property, which suggests I should hopefully get somewhere eventually. But I have a few months left on a private rental contract - it's not a rolling/monthly contract. If I were to bid now and be offered a property next week (in theory, not saying it's likely!), would my landlord expect me to pay for the last few months in my contract? (I'm in a big city house share so I'm sure he'd find a replacement).

I don't understand how people coordinate this if they're renting privately but move to social housing, where my understanding is you're expected to move in immediately? Does anyone have any experience with this? Waiting til the month before my contract is due to end to bid seems unrealistic, as the housing association won't tell you how high up you are on the list. My landlord is quite informal, but can also be extremely unreasonable and stingy.

Is anyone who is renting privately likely to be offered social housing?
I was reading that current waiting lists are over 10 years long in many parts of the country.
IME, certainly in London, you won't be offered social housing if you are not already homeless.
Therefore, I think yours is a theoretical problem, but if you have signed a year's contract, you will be liable for rent to the end of that year. Sometimes the landlord might be prepared to end the tenancy early if they can find someone else to rent to, but they don't have to, unless there is a break clause.

I'm not really talking about the council list. In my city there's a social housing provider where you can make an account and allocations are based on how long you've had an an active account as long as you meet the criteria for the property. It's not a theoretical problem, you don't have to be homeless to live in their properties - some of them require you to be working or volunteering at least 16 hours a week

Also it is quite likely I will be threatened with homelessness if I carry on living here as the house is probably going to be demolished by the council due to regeneration plans - but I understand to get rehoused by the council if that happened would be an incredibly long process

Oh, I wasn't aware of that, that's positive news! Would you mind saying which area of the country you are in?

West Midlands.

Have you checked to see if your tenancy agreement contains a break clause?

If I couldn't get out of my original tenancy I would suck up the extra cost and have both properties for as long as I had to. It would give time to decorate the new house and you would have time to move in stages, plus time to clean your old place properly before you leave.

it is essentially what I did when we bought the house we have now. We kept on our rented property for a month and I'm so glad we did. Our new house was absolutely filthy, so we had time to clean it, do some basic decorating, replace some radiators, and build flat pack furniture! We could also move a lot of stuff ourselves before we actually moved in, so there was less for the removals firm to take. And more time to pack up!
So I would start saving now so that you have enough to pay rent on 2 places if you have to. If you don't need it then you will have a bit of savings left over to make your new place nice.

If there is no break clause you could perhaps ask if you can sublet it or, if you find a new tenant yourself, they'd let you leave earlier? Always worth asking but understand you might not want to until you have your new place. Good luck! :)

It really does depend on the landlord, but a reasonable landlord will often say if they can find a new tenant quickly you will just need to pay until the new tenancy takes up occupation, others will state you've signed a contract and request you pay the remainder of it.

If your contract still has time on it, then you will need to pay unless you can come to an agreement with your landlord.

Also be aware if you are offered a HA property you have to start paying rent on the day they hand over the keys, which is often only a day or so after you have viewed a property. I had this recently and had to pay two lots of rent for a month. Luckily I was on a rolling contract with my private landlord so only had to give one months notice. But it was still really hard finding two lots of rent.

I have no means to save atm, I'm on Universal Credit and my basic expenses take up everything (and I top up my outgoings with savings). The only way to realistically save on my current income would be to stop buying food! Also your UC gets reduced if you save too much. Definitely sounds like a good idea in theory to save though.

You’d have to continue paying your landlord to the end of the tenancy unless there is a break clause or they agree for you to leave early and look for a new tenant sooner. So it totally depends on your landlord really, you’d need their agreement to leave and stop paying ahead of the end of tenancy.