Your Social Worker or any support workers can send in letters supporting your application, explaining why you need to move. These will be assessed in line with our Allocation Policy, and we will write to you if your priority banding changes. 

We would advise that you check your housing application to make sure all the information we have about your household, housing circumstances and contact details are up to date. You can also update your application with your Social Worker and/or Support Workers details and give permission for us to discuss your application with them.  

Unfortunately, we have more applicants who would like social housing than we have available properties. Therefore, applicants can be waiting many years before they are successful in bidding on a property. If you have a low priority, need a large family home or are only looking for a specific area where we have very little social housing, then you may not be successful in bidding for a property. 

There are ways you can increase your chances of being offered a property: 

• Make sure you log on each week to check for properties. 
• Make sure your application in kept up to date with any changes to your household or circumstances. 
• Be flexible in your areas of choice and property types. For example, we have lower demand for two-bedroom flats that we do for two-bedroom houses. 
• Apply directly to other social housing providers in the district who let 50% of their available properties from their own websites. 

You can apply directly to other social housing providers who provide accommodation in the district who may have different qualification criteria to ourselves. 

• Places for People - You can register and view advertised vacancies on their website.
• Jigsaw Homes - You can view advertised vacancies on Right Move here.
• Guinness Partnership - You can view advertised vacancies on Zoopla.

For over 55’s accommodation:

• Anchor Housing - You can view advertised vacancies on their website.  
• Johnnie Johnson - You can view advertised vacancies on their website. 
• Onward Homes - You can view advertised vacancies on their website. 

Lancaster City Council Independent Living Accommodation has a different policy from other social housing providers of Sheltered Accommodation in the district. 

Lancaster City Council will on occasion advertise some properties to applicants aged 55 and over but we will not accept applicants who are younger than 55 for Independent Living properties. If an applicant has a partner who is aged under 60, but the applicant aged over 60 requires Independent Living, then they can bid on properties but they will need to have their application amended by a member of the Ideal Choice Homes team to enable them to do this. 

Most other social housing providers of Sheltered Accommodation will accept applicants from the age of 55 (Anchor Housing, Places for People, Contour, Johnnie Johnson and Housing 21). Places for People will sometimes accept applicants who are aged under 55 who have a medical need for support, but other providers will not accept applicants aged under 55. We would advise that you contact each provider directly. 

To have a rural connection you need to have a connection to a rural parish or the market town of Carnforth. A connection means that you have:

·        Lived in that parish for at least six out of the past twelve months or three out of the past 5 years.   

·        Previously lived in that parish for at least 5 years   

·        Have permanent employment in a parish and have worked in the village for the previous 6 months.  

·        Have close family who live in the village and have done so for the previous six months.  (Close family includes parents, adult children and adult siblings)  

Additional rural connection priority is given to applicants within bands but not between bands. This means that if we advertise a property to a given band, for example 'Band C', an applicant in 'Band C' with a rural connection, will be given priority over an applicant in 'Band C' with no rural connection.  

When we advertise a property, it will say if additional priority will be given to an applicant with a rural connection. Before we select which band to use for a property in a rural village we will normally look at the housing register to see how many applicants in each band we have with a rural connection to that village and what band previous properties in that village were prioritised to.

Under the Planning Act some developments are subject to Section 106. This requires those properties to be let to customers with a local connection, which can be more demanding than the rural connection Lancaster City Council applies. Where this applies, only those applicants meeting the requirement of the Section 106 will be eligible for an offer of property.  

The advert will state if this applies to the property and provide details of the connection required.  

In order for an applicant to have a rural connection, they will need to provide documentary evidence of this. If there is limited or no social housing in the village to which an applicant has a rural connection, a rural connection will be given to the next surrounding village(s). 

Government Guidance states that local authorities should avoid allocating social housing to people who already own their own homes. They advise that where local authorities do so, this should only be in exceptional circumstances; for example, for elderly owner occupiers who cannot stay in their own home and need to move to sheltered housing. 

Therefore, our Allocation Policy reflects this guidance and states that: 

If an applicant owns, has an interest in a property or has signed over a property to someone else or sold a property in the previous five years, then they will not qualify to join the Housing Register.  

This will apply to properties owned or previously owned both within and outside the United Kingdom.  

The only exceptions to this will be:  

• Where the applicant is requiring Independent Retirement Living Accommodation (flatted accommodation only).  
• Where the applicant has a high medical award (25 or more points) and it is unreasonable for them to remain in their current accommodation on medical grounds and/or their housing problem cannot be resolved by adapting their present home or by selling it and purchasing or renting a more suitable home.  
• Where the applicant is facing repossession as they are unable to pay the mortgage and there is no equity in the property. All avenues to remain in the property will need to have been exhausted and a possession order granted, for this exception to apply.  
• Applicants who have had their property repossessed or sold within the previous five years (due to their property being unaffordable) and they have been left with less than £26,000 in capital from the sale of the property.  
• Applicants whose name has been removed from a property as part of a separation or divorce settlement and they have less than £26,000 in capital from any financial arrangement.  
• Where the applicant is unable to reside in the property due to domestic abuse and all options to reside safely in the property have been explored.