Home swap question

[summer rain]

We have five kids and are currently living in a three bedroom flat just about inside London. As all our children are boys and one is under one so not even counted as a 'person' for housing purposes we are not entitled to go on our local council list and our housing association have an internal list but getting them to sign you up on it in the first place is like getting blood out of a stone, not that there are many properties that come up on it anyway. We have been told our best shot is mutual exchange but after three years of getting so close to an exchange and it not going through and getting absolutely zero interest in the past year or so we are now seriously toying with the idea of swapping with someone we know who has a three bedroom house-with all three bedrooms being double/king sized.

Big question is, would we be allowed to do this? It seems a lot of housing associations will allow swapping to a property slightly smaller/with fewer bedrooms than needed but it's not made 100% clear what this means. Has anyone here swapped into a smaller property than what they technically need or a property the same size as their current place but they were overcrowded in their current place? We are running out of options and cannot afford to rent privately in our area, we are entitled to some housing benefit if we were to rent privately but OH is self-employed and we have seen the hassle others we know have had with constantly having to provide proof of earnings and them stopping HB willy nilly, so we'd rather avoid a scenario where we are relying on HB xx

 

[nugget80]

I am in no way certain but at the moment it sounds like you require 6 bed spaces. A double bedroom is 2 bed spaces. So you have 2 adults and 4 children who count meaning 6 spaces required. 3 double bedrooms would give the required space so should be fine. A 4 bed house may only give same number of bed spaces depending on whether rooms are doubles or singles... I don't know if its the same every where though. We are in herts...

 

[summer rain]

Thanks hun, I have written to the other party's housing association a few days ago but so far have had no reply from them and they don't have any more information on their website. I just wish there was a set national policy on these things then we would know where we stand xx

 

[amie-leigh]

I am in Scotland so rules are probably different but from what I know of mutual exchanges it can be done even if it is the same amount of bedrooms as it could be the area you want not the space, I know two families who swapped both in 2 bedroom houses but one wanted to be closer to her family.

 

[summer rain]

Yeah I think in England and Wales they have specific overcrowding laws though landlords/housing assocs can choose to an extent which criteria they use. It's made even more complicated in that some will count a living room as an additional bedroom whereas others will not xx