Common Allocations Policy April 2025
Common Allocations Policy: Reviewing, removal, deferral, suspension and merging of applications
We will review your application at least once a year. The date of this review is based on the date you registered your housing application with us. This is important to keep the CHR up-to-date and ensure appropriate offers of housing are made.
As part of the review, we will write to you asking if there have been any changes in your circumstances and if your choices of property type and area are the same.
We will give you 28 days to reply. If you don't reply, we will remove your application from the CHR.
However, if you contact us within 3 months of your application being cancelled, you can have your original application form reinstated. The date of registration will be based on the date you made the original application. You may be required to complete a new application form if your circumstances have changed.
If you are placed in Strategic Need or Homelessness group, we will review your application every three months to check you are still in acute housing need.
Removal of applications
There are other times when we will remove an application from the CHR apart from the annual review.
We will remove your application from the CHR if:
- you request, in writing, that you wish to be removed from the list
- you do not reply when we ask you for more information to support your application or we ask you to get in touch with us for some other reason
- you fail to respond to a review
- we have been notified of your death
Deferred applications
You can ask us to defer your application if you don't want to get an offer of housing for some reason. This means that you can stay on the CHR but won't get an offer of housing. People sometimes ask us to do this if their home comes with their job but they don't have to leave their home yet. If you ask us to defer your application, it is your responsibility to tell us when you'd like to be considered for an offer of housing. You must still respond to our letters when we review your application if you ask us to defer your application.
We will not normally defer applications that are held in the Homelessness or Strategic Need groups.
Suspending applications
Everyone has a right to have their application added to our CHR if they are aged 16 years or over. However, we can suspend your application from the CHR in certain circumstances. If we suspend your application, you will not be offered accommodation, even if you are in housing need.
We want to keep to a minimum the number of people we suspend on the CHR, but there are some circumstances where we do need to suspend people from the CHR. These circumstances are as follows.
| Reason for suspension | Period of suspension | Reason for ending suspension |
|---|---|---|
| You refuse two reasonable offers of housing. | 12 months from date of second refusal. | Application automatically reinstated after 12 months. |
| You withhold information that you should have told us about: for example, if you had a tenancy in the three years before you applied to us for housing and you didn't tell us, that's withholding information that you should have told us about. | 6 months from date discovered. | Application automatically reinstated after 6 months. |
| You give us misleading information: if you tell us that you left your last home because the tenancy ended but the tenancy ended because your landlord had you evicted because you didn't pay your rent, that's providing us with misleading information. | 6 months from date discovered. | Application automatically reinstated after 6 months. |
| You give us information that you know is wrong: if you tell us you never owned a property or you were never the tenant of a property when you were, this is providing information that you know is wrong. | 6 months from date discovered. | Application automatically reinstated after 6 months. |
| You do something that makes your housing situation worse such as giving up a secure tenancy without having another property to go to. | 6 months from date discovered or from date you left the accommodation. | Application automatically reinstated after 6 months. |
| You or someone that lives with you has been responsible for serious and enduring antisocial behaviour or is the subject of an ASBO. | This will be reviewed every three months and information will be obtained from your landlord, the Safer Communities Team, Police Scotland or any other relevant agencies. | Evidence that behaviour has improved. |
| You have lost a previous tenancy within the last 3 years by abandoning it: for example, you leave a property that you have rented without handing back the keys or notifying your landlord. | 6 months from date discovered. |
|
| You have outstanding rent arrears equivalent to more than one twelfth of the annual rent charge and there is no arrangement in place to repay what you owe. | Subject to you replaying the debt. | Evidence that rent or service charge debt has reduced and you have made at least 3 monthly payments towards what you owe. |
| You have previously been evicted by a court order within the last 3 years: for example, you were evicted for rent arrears (drug dealing/cultivation from your home) or damage to the property or its contents. | 6 months from date discovered. | Application automatically reinstated after 6 months. |
You can appeal against our decision to suspend your application and also ask us to review our decision if your circumstances change. See the 'Appeals' section for further information on appeals and complaints.
Merging applications
You may wish to be considered jointly for housing with someone who already has an application on the CHR. This means that you could merge your application with this person. In these cases, the date of application will be determined by the date of the earliest application.
If you wish to withdraw from a joint application you will be allowed to have your original date of application reinstated if you wish to resubmit an application in your own right.
The group and points allocated will be reassessed due to the change in your circumstances.
Change in circumstances
You must tell us if your circumstances change.
You can call us, email or write to us to tell us about the change. If someone joins your household or leaves it, or you move home, you need to tell us about this change.
Where your application is placed on the CHR and the group you are placed in and the points you get (if any) may change if there is a change of circumstances.
You can get the form you need on the Perth and Kinross Council website, from any of our officers or by asking for one by phone or email.
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