How Find Your Home Works

There are four steps for you to follow in order to choose your new home:

Step 1 – Registration

Once your completed application has been assessed and you have been included on the housing register, your Council will write to you. We will tell you what band you are in and the size of property you are eligible for.

If there are any changes to your household, accommodation or personal circumstances you can complete an online change of circumstance form by signing in and selecting 'change of circumstances'. You may have to complete another form and provide us with evidence. It is very important that we know any changes as it may alter your priority, or the type of property you are eligible for.

Step 2 – Bidding

All homes in Lewisham are advertised weekly Thursday to Sunday.

Each advert will show the ‘Bidding Closes’ date and you will have until the end of this date to bid for the home.  You should only bid for homes you are eligible for which are advertised on this website only. The adverts give you information about each property available for letting and if available a photograph will be included.

Step 3 – Offer

At the end of the bidding period, all bids for homes are put in priority order to produce a list of eligible applicants for each property.

The landlord of each property will complete further eligibility checks before offering a viewing. Following these checks if your name is still at the top of the “priority list” you will be invited to view the property. If you refuse, the next person who is eligible on the list will be offered the home. Please note that you will only be able to view a property when it has been formally offered to you.

If the one-offer policy does not apply to you, you can have two homes offered to you, except for decants and large-scale decants. If you don’t come to a viewing, accept an offer or sign a tenancy agreement of two properties in a row, you will be disqualified for 12 months. You can find out how many offers you are entitled to by viewing the table at section 2.5.1 of the Allocations Policy.

You may be penalised for refusing properties you have chosen. Your Council will advise you if any action will be taken because you have refused a property. Some landlords invite more than one applicant to view their properties at the same time, although the property is always offered first to the applicant with the highest priority.

If you receive an offer to view but you do not wish to, or are unable to attend you must contact the landlord immediately. If you are subject to one offer only or this is your second offer your application may be cancelled.

Step 4 – Feedback

It is not possible to notify you individually when your bids have been unsuccessful but you can get this information from the website (see ‘feedback’ at the bottom of the website page).

All properties that have been advertised will be listed once they have been let. This tells you how many people bid for each property as well as the band of the successful bidder and the time that they had been waiting for a property.