Bid for housing

How to bid on properties

1. You need to be on the council housing register and have 120 points or more to bid for council and housing association properties. Find out how we allocate housing based on your needs using the points system.
2. We advertise vacant properties every week on the Home Connections website. Bidding opens on Thursdays and closes Sundays at midnight.
3. We will let you know what size property you can bid for, and give you a user ID and pin number that you need to bid.

We allocate housing using the guidelines in our housing allocation scheme. Read the full scheme in the 'useful documents' section.

Bid for a property

You can bid for properties on the Home Connections website from Thursday until midnight on Sunday every week.

You can also bid through the Home Connection app on your smartphone or tablet.

• Home Connection app for Apple
• Home Connection app for Android on Google Play

If you log in to the Home Connection site, you may not see recent changes to your points or priority straight away. If you think that your points are incorrect, or you should be able to bid on a property but can't, contact us on 020 7527 4140.

If you have any questions, contact us on rehousing@islington.gov.uk.

What to do if your bid is successful

If you are told that your bid is successful, you must give us the documents we need within 48 hours from when we ask for them. This is so we can check your application.

If you do not give us the documents in time, you will not get the property.

If bid for a property or attend a viewing and we don't contact you within seven days, you have not been successful. We update property details often. You can check the status of the listing to see if your bid was successful.

Documents we need

You must give us these documents within 48 hours of us confirming your successful bid.

• Proof of identity (ID) for all the people moving in with you - either a birth certificate or passport.

• Proof that you are still living at the address you applied from – copies of recent official letters, bank statements, utility bills sent to your current home.

We may also ask for proof:

• that you have been asked to leave your home – a copy of your 'notice seeking possession'

• of your immigration status.

We may also carry out a home visit.

Viewings

If you are successful on a bid for a property, we will invite you to a viewing to see the property.

• You will get a text at least 24 hours before the viewing date.
• You must reply to the text saying you want to attend. Your may also get a call from a housing officer to check.
• Let us know if you can't attend the viewing so that we can invite other bidders.
• There can be up to seven other people viewing the property.

Accepting a property you've viewed

After the viewing the property, the attending officer will give you a viewing sheet for you to accept or reject the property. If you reject the property, we ask that you give us the reasons you have refused.

Refusing a property you have viewed

You can refuse any property you are offered after bidding. You should not accept a property you are offered and then refuse it later as this could get you removed from the housing register.

How we decide our offers

Applicants are shortlisted for each vacancy in order of how many points they have, the more points the more likely it is we will offer.

Some properties may have other priorities listed in the advert. For example:

• ground floor homes may go to someone with a medical assessment for their need for ground floor access
• homes in an area someone lives will most likely go to locals
• tenants who are downsizing are likely to be offered one-bedroom vacancies.

Numbers of properties in each area of Islington

Use these maps to see the numbers of each type of council and housing association property that exists in the borough. These are not numbers of available properties.

• One bedroom

• Two bedrooms

• Three bedrooms

• Four or more bedrooms.