Being offered a social housing tenancy

When council or housing association properties become available, we will advertise them on the Runnymede Borough Council Living & Homes website.

Bidding on a property

Once your application has been assessed, you will be able to view the properties and place a 'bid' through the website. You should only bid on properties that are suitable for you and meet your household needs. 

The photo in the property advert will not be of the actual property but will be of a similar property on the same road. We will not provide the house or flat number and will be unable to give you this information.

You can place up to three live bids at a time. If you are offered a property that you have successfully bid on, you will be expected to accept the offer, unless you have valid reasons to refuse it. If we consider your reasons to be invalid, then this will count as a refusal.

Please note that there will not always be properties available to bid on as there are limited vacancies each year.

Being offered a property

Following the closing date of the advert, we will assess all bids and decide who to offer the property to. This is based on the priority banding of those who have bid and who the property is most suitable for.

Every household that is considered for a property will be subject to a fraud check to ensure the information they have declared is correct. 

The person who is being offered the property, will be invited to view the property with a member of the Housing Allocations team. If the property belongs to a housing association, then we will give the person's details to them to arrange an assessment and viewing.

Assisted choice for homeless households scheme

The choice based lettings scheme does not apply to those homeless households where the Council has accepted a full, statutory housing duty. Instead, we will directly make one suitable offer of accommodation under the assisted choice for homeless households scheme. This is likely to be an offer of accommodation in the private rented sector.

This scheme applies to all those in temporary accommodation, in bed and breakfast accommodation and those who are 'homeless at home'.

If the household refuses the one suitable offer, then the Council will discharge its statutory duty, meaning no further offer of accommodation will be made. The household will be expected to make their own arrangements for housing as they will be unable to remain in the temporary accommodation or bed and breakfast accommodation.

Other direct letting of properties

There are other times when we may decide not to advertise a property under our choice based lettings scheme. We may instead choose to directly offer it to someone on the housing register in order to make the best use of Council stock.