Moving into social housing.

[LjPowers]

Hiya!

My family and I were offered a house at the beginning of feb and have gone through all the paperwork and have been accepted. The house we bid on was empty at the time of being listed and when bidding was completed and we had our interview we were told that the inspection had been done and that it was with maintenance. There were also no big issues with the house.

What I’m wanting to know is, what is your experience as far as the process goes? What is the average turn around time from being successful with your bid and getting the keys? We have yet to view the place and when we speak with our liaison we get the same response that she is waiting on the maintenance team to let her know when we can view. Does it normally take this long to view? And when we view what is the average time to get the keys?

We’re a little frantic on this end because the accommodation that we have comes to an end at the end of the month.

Thanks in advance for all responses.

Chapel Street? 🤔

I get what you're saying about rent vs hotel but seems madness to voluntary leave your home and sofa surf with kids and dogs when you've no formal offer, you've not seen the place and all your experience of the people involved is that they're massively unreliable. Everything is taking longer these days with the shitshow in the economy, difficulty getting decent trades people, system on its knees etc. You've paid the high rent until now, pay for another month at least rather than moving out and hugely amplifying this stressful situation.

What kind of a LL doesn’t serve the proper legal notice? Or have you given formal notice yourself?

Remember, you haven’t seen inside the property yet. You haven’t had the formal offer. Don’t jump the gun and leave your current property and find yourself homeless.

Defininitley phone on Monday. Definitely follow up with an email and list all the times you have contacted them by email or phone and make clear when you are expected to leave your current property. Say you will contact your MP if you still haven’t heard by the end of Tuesday.

Keep emphasising that you are on the verge of being homeless.

But don’t leave your rented property. Tell the LL on Monday that you have nowhere to go and won’t be able to leave, but you will go as soon as your new property is ready and will keep him in the loop.

Can I ask what the interview process was like when you were offered the house? What documents were needed etc?

3-4 months in our area. There have recently been properties vacant for this length of time near me. Where the previous tenant was only in the house for 2-3 years. So any major work had been done fairly recently anyway. Workmen would turn up for a few days one week then a few the next, here and there sometimes for half a day. Such a waste of time /money when there's people waiting to move in, this is over the last two to three years so can't really be blamed on material shortages.

When we moved (quite a few years ago) we were asked if we could move in two weeks as previous prospective tenant had fallen through.

Right to rent checks. So ID such as birth cert or passport. Landlord references. 3 months bank statements and affordability check.

We didn’t have to do much other than an affordability check during our interview. It was really quick and only about five minutes. They only asked us for bank statements and right to rent. I do believe though that we had to give the council so many documents, and I think they got what they needed from there. Ours also didn’t ask for any landlord references but I think it depends on the council of SH you’re going through.

Well we ended up putting our house in storage and we’re spending a few nights with my family which isn’t much of a stress. We view the house on Wednesday and will have a date to move in. I’m not sure how long it will take to get the keys but out CLO advised it’s done very quickly and within a matter of a few days. So let’s see. our CLO mentioned that they used to outsource their maintenance work and because of that the voids were turned over far quicker, but now they have reverted to using in house teams and are having far to many teething problems along the way.

Thanks everyone for your advice, it really helped and suddenly pushed everything along a lot quicker. Thankfully we’re on the final stretch now.

Ive been offered a property which I accepted with housing association back at the beginning of September still waiting for tenancy sign up and keys them sent me an email a few back saying inspection is end of week that's a few weeks ago now they saying they are waiting for update from voids team
Any advice would be much appreciated.

My only bit of advice is to keep in constant contact with your agent and pester them. We ended up viewing the place and then still waited a further month to get keys because the voids team had done nothing. The handover team is separate to sign up and separate to voids. Honestly, we found the one couldn’t be bothered with what the other was doing so voids never got their act in line and started work.

My new next door neighbour waited 6 weeks to get his keys as the void team just ignored his emails and could not see how urgent it was for him to move in,he is in now but still witing for his emergency furniture package which they supply for all homeless tenants he hs been sleeping and sitting on the floor until this past week I would ring the void team every day and make a nuscence of myself if I was you best of luck to you.