Priority on the housing list

Tower Hamlets has a very large demand for affordable housing and a very short supply of it.

To help us ensure we are targeting our supply of housing to people who need it most, we assess all applicants eligible for the housing list against set criteria to determine their priority.

The information we use to assess your application against the priority criteria is taken from what you supplied on your application to join the housing list. Therefore, even if you have been on the housing list for some time, you must tell us of any changes to your circumstances, including if you change your address.

Criteria for assessing priority

By law, we must give ‘reasonable preference’ to people who:

• are homeless or threatened with homelessness or owed a duty under Homelessness legislation
• need to move on medical or welfare grounds
• live in overcrowded or insanitary or otherwise unsatisfactory housing conditions
• need to move to a particular area to ease hardship.

In Tower Hamlets we have devised four categories of applicants, called ‘community groups’, to help us to comply with the law and take account of our local needs.

Below are summaries of the types of needs, and which of the four groups they are categorised into. For a more detailed explanation, see the relevant section of our lettings policy.

Community group one

This group includes applications from people on the list who:

• have been given an emergency priority to move by a senior council or partner landlord officer (see sections 7.4.2 and 9.4.2 of the lettings policy)
• need to move because their block is being decanted
• are council or registered social landlord tenants who are moving to a smaller home

Community group two

This group includes applications from people on the list who have been assessed as:

• being homeless (the council’s homeless service makes this decision – see section 3 of the lettings policy)
• having extenuating health need (see section 7.4 of the lettings policy) or social need see section 9.4.1 of the lettings policy)
• being council and registered social landlord tenants who need to move because of extenuating repair needs
• being from a quota group – listed in section 10 of the lettings policy. These are generally people who are being given additional housing priority as it is considered in the community’s interests to help re-house them. (Examples include selected key public sector workers, care leavers, or people moving on from supported accommodation).

Community group three

This group is all applications on the housing list that do not fall under groups one, two or four.

Community group four

This group includes applications from:

• registered social landlord tenants whose landlord is not a member of the common housing register – and are not eligible to be included in community groups one or two
• people who own or part own their own residential property (a lettings customer advisor will do a search with the land registry to decide if this applies to you)
• people without a local connection to the area. (i.e. you don’t work in the borough, have no family in the borough, or have not lived in the borough. A lettings customer advisor will investigate your circumstances and make the decision).

Contact us & further information

If you would like more information about how we prioritise housing need, please refer to the lettings policy or contact the council’s lettings team here.

See also the council’s housing contacts page.

Pid No: 89, 92