Applying for social housing

To register for social housing, please visit Lewisham Find Your Home.

The Lewisham Find Your Home website replaced Lewisham Homesearch in March 2021 as the place to register a housing application, view properties and place bids. Anyone who has an active housing register application but has not logged onto the Find Your Home site will need to re-register to the website. Read our registration guide.

Before you apply

There are over 10,500 people on the housing register in Lewisham. We are continuing to build new social homes through our Building for Lewisham programme, as well as pushing private developers to deliver more social housing, but there is still a severe shortage of social homes in the borough.

The table below contains the estimated minimum waiting time for a property, if you join the housing register today. These estimates are based on the number of people on the housing register and the number of properties let per year.

Given the high demand for social housing, we recommend you consider other housing options before applying for social housing.

• find out more about renting and finding a home in the private rented sector
• find out more about affordable ways to buy a home

Who can apply

You can apply for social housing if you:

• live in the UK permanently
• are aged over 18
• have a gross annual household income of £50,000 or less
• have household savings of £16,000 or less
• have lived in the borough continuously for the last five years.

Who we prioritise

We use a banding system to prioritise people who:

• are homeless
• live in unhygienic or overcrowded housing
• are vulnerable
• have medical needs or disabilities
• have urgent transfer needs, where somebody's life is severely endangered.

We also give priority to existing Council tenants who would like to move to another social home who:

• need to move due to major repairs works, improvements or redevelopment
• are experiencing racial, sexual or other harassment
• have too many bedrooms and are moving to smaller Council housing.

If you are eligible to be placed on the housing register, you will be placed into one of the following priority bands:

Band 1 includes households with an urgent need to move due to their life being in danger; tenants of Council or partner landlords needing to move as their home is due to be demolished; and young people to whom the Council has a corporate parental responsibility. 

Band 2 includes households who are severely overcrowded as their property is three bedrooms short for their needs; households to whom the Council owes a statutory homeless duty and have additional needs; households assessed as suffering from a serious physical or mental illness as a result of their present housing circumstances.

Band 3 includes households to whom the Council owes a statutory homeless duty and households who are overcrowded as their property is two bedrooms short for their needs.

Band 4 includes households who are overcrowded as their property is one bedroom short for their needs or households who are statutorily overcrowded.

• find out more information about the priority bands in our Housing Allocations Policy
• join the housing register
• support if you are already on the housing register

Lewisham Council will never ask you to make payment in return for a place on the housing waiting list or to obtain a social tenancy. Please beware of scammers asking for your money.

Appeal against a decision

You can ask us to review our decision if:

• we haven’t accepted your application to be on the housing register.
• you think we have made the wrong decision about your priority banding. 

The review request must be made in writing and within 21 days of our decision explaining the reasons why you disagree with our decision. If you wish you can provide evidence to support your review request. Review requests should be sent by email to housingregisterappeals@lewisham.gov.uk. We will aim to respond to you within 56 days.

You can also ask us to review our decision if you are living in temporary accommodation and we have discharged our duty to accommodate you because you have refused an offer of social housing.

The review request must be made within 21 days of the date of the decision. The review request must be made in writing and should explain the reasons why you disagree with our decision. If you wish you can provide evidence to support your review request. Review requests should be sent by email to housingreviews@lewisham.gov.uk.

If you are not eligible for social housing

If you are not eligible for social housing, do not meet a priority category or have had your application rejected, there are other ways you can find a home to live in:

• renting privately can offer you a choice of homes and the opportunity to find a stable and affordable home, near to your work, family and friends – find out how to find a private rented property
• Homefinder UK advertises social housing across the country, including in areas where there are shorter waiting times for social housing
• swapping your home with another social housing tenant is an option if you are an existing Council or housing association tenant – find out more information about swapping your home with another social housing tenant

Contact

Housing Options - telephone: 0808 178 0939.

If you're an existing social housing tenant who would like to transfer, please contact your landlord.

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