How We Let Our Homes
The Lettings Team is responsible for ensuring that Council and Housing Association properties are allocated fairly and efficiently to Hackney residents on our waiting list.
Everyone who joins the waiting list is assessed under the Council’s lettings policy and placed in a priority band. Each applicant is also given a band date which is usually the date that s/he joined that band. Applicants with older band dates are given priority over cases that have been waiting for less time within their band.
As required by law we have published our full lettings policy, called 
How We Let Our Homes (195KB) on this website.
However in order to make things easier for residents some key parts of the policy have been produced in easily understood leaflets and are available from this page. The policy issues covered are:
How to Apply for Housing (667KB) How We Assess Your Application (228KB) How Many Bedrooms You Need (228KB) Medical Priority (226KB) Harassment and Domestic Violence (229KB) Council Interest Priorities (224KB)
Contacting the Council about Lettings
If there are questions you have that have not been answered by this page you should contact the Council to seek further advice.
Because there are usually between 12,000 and 15,000 households on the waiting list at any time it is not possible for the Lettings Team to deal with general enquiries. Instead you should first contact your caseworker, if you have one.
For council tenants enquiries should be made to your local Neighbourhood Office. Homeless applicants should contact the Homelessness Unit. Other waiting list applicants should contact the Housing Register team.
Choice Based Lettings (CBL)
The Council introduced a Choice Based Lettings (CBL) system in September 2006. This allows residents to have a greater involvement in deciding where they want to live and what type of property they would prefer. Only applicants with a high level of priority (Urgent, Priority and Homeless Bands) are likely to be able to bid successfully for a new home. Predicted lettings for the current year are shown in the Lettings Plan available on this page.
The CBL system advertises vacant Council and housing association homes available for Hackney residents every week. You can see the properties available by obtaining the Hackney Choice magazine from Council offices and libraries or by logging on to the East London Lettings site.
Bidding starts on Friday morning and ends at midnight on Monday. The day and time when you bid does not have any effect on your queue position. You may bid for up to two properties per week.
Further details of the Choice Based Lettings system are available on the Hackney Choice page.
You can obtain advice and assistance on CBL by phoning 020 8356 2135.
Page updated: 26 Nov 2008
How We Let Our Homes (195KB)