Anyone ever done a council or housing exchange ??

[nutcracker]

We decided to advertise our house on a council/housing exchange site just to see what sort of response we would get.

Someone has replied saying they are very interested in our house and we are very interested in theirs as it is in a lovely area although would be a big step for us as it's around 2 hours from where we live now.

At the moment we are just emailing pictures and info etc etc but I just wonderd if anyone on here had ever done an excyhange and had any hints or tips or things to look out for incase it does go ahead.

TIA

Hello nutty

I've done 3 exchanges now, two through this site and one through another one that I can't remember the name of now ()

I've been very lucky to have had three trouble-free exchanges, but I know from frequenting the forums that there are a lot of time-wasters out there.

It's quite an easy (and quick) process, as long as both parties comply with any regulations (neither party can exchange if there are any rent arrears, and there are some rules about number of bedrooms iirc).

Hiya, wow 3 times , not sure i'd cope with that LOL.

We don't have any rent arrears but we are on Housing benefit at the mo so not sure if that would be a problem.

I know you have to be moving to a property that you would be neither over or under occupying but that wouldn't be a problem as we'd be going from a 4 bed to either a 3 or 4 bed.

Have to pop out now but will check the link later, thanks.

Being on benefits won't matter nutty, there are very few criteria you have to meet tbh - the arrears one is the main one, and the under/over occupation is another.

And yes - I am sick of moving house! I'm very happy where I am now - sometimes it takes a few moves to get to where you want to be

Did you change areas completely each time ??

We aren't really sure which area we want , just a case of seeing whats on offer really. Dp isn't working at the mo so we could actually go anywhere.

We've been on the homeswap site for over a year with no luck so good on you for finding one so quickly nutty!

There was one woman who was a time-waster, kept us waiting ages before saying she wanted to move nearer her son and we live in the complete opposite direction. We don't have a huge choice where we want to stay as I want to keep dts at their school and dh's work is in the next town. So it is all down to the waiting game I'm afraid! If it doesn't work out I have a few other sites you can try nutty.

Well the 2 who were interested are now no goes. One sent pictures and the house needed way too much doing to it and the other decided ours was a bit too far.

So were back on the look out again. We'd ideally like to move somewhere coastal but then so does everyone else LOL.

I'm going to put some pics of the house on to raise a bit more interest and place some ads on some more sites i think.

TwoifBySea - We were registered on the Homeswap site when we were in the flat and never heard a thing either.

Nutty, sorry to hear that, here are the other sites I registered with also...

Exchange UK

UK Homeswap

There are a couple of local ones only if you wanted to move up to the Lothians. So it is worth checking locally as well.

Happy hunting!