Thursday 23 April 2009

Help......am I going mad?

As I had a day off today I've been wasting my day online off and on. I came across a blog on this site about a homeless family who have a full housing duty accepted to them by their Local Authority, but was astounded to read this:

The Council have just written to us to inform us that they agree we are homeless and we now have 3 months before we can bid on a Council House.When you start bidding you can bid on 2 properties, twice a month for two months and if you are not awarded a property during this period you are allocated one by the Council, you have no choice, which could be anywhere in the Epping Forest.

I asked the author of the blog if they had been advised of the reason for the 3 month delay and was stunned when I received the following in reply "Thank you for your question. We asked the same question at the time and were told it was to allow smoothly running of the system as they don't have a great amount of house stock in the area.
So, once you are in the Shelter you technically have a roof over your head and therefore you can wait 3 months before going into band 1."

Seems that the Local Authority is using their waiting list to try to force people into other housing options in my opinion

2 comments:

Elts said...

Why does that not surprise me, sounds exactly like the same situation our LHA has put us in, although we have not even been told about the 3 months waiting to be banded ! (although our rent is 350pw).

Anonymous said...

Not that suprising to me.
I'm aware of a LA in north london that gives people in temp accom a *tiny* amount of preference.
However, if the lease on their temp accom is up *then* they get a big boost.