We provide advice and assistance to help our customers either stay in their current home or find alternative accommodation where staying is not an option.
Our first priority will be to help you stay in your current home.
This may include:
- speaking with your landlord if they have asked you to leave and advising you of your rights to stay in your home
- giving you advice in dealing with rent or mortgage arrears
- reviewing any disrepair issues, such as damp or condensation
- giving you money management and budgeting advice
- referring you to other organisations who may be able to provide you with financial or practical support including help into employment and training.
If we are unable to find a way for you to stay in your current home, we will try to help you to obtain suitable accommodation.
We will:
- give you advice on how to rent privately and help you work out how much rent you can afford to pay at your new home
- help you work out which areas are affordable for you to live in. You may not be able to afford to live in Barnet anymore
- look at what support we can offer you to find a new home. If we help you find a new home it will most likely be with a private landlord and it may not be in Barnet. Very few people who approach us for help are offered council or housing association properties.
Effective from 15 November 2018, Barnet Homes has a non-cooperation policy regarding attendance at viewings for private rented properties. If you persistently and unreasonably refuse to attend property viewings, we will provide you with warning. If you refuse to comply with our warning, our housing duty toward you will come to an end and you will receive no further assistance.
Housing assessments
Click here for an outline of our assessment process from start to finish.
If you are homeless or at risk of homelessness, you must contact us as soon as possible on 020 8610 3539.
A Housing Options Officer will then do a triage assessment to find out if Barnet Council can help you. As part of the assessment, you will be asked questions about:
- you and your household, including immigration status
- any serious medical conditions you believe are affected or made worse by your current home
- your income and expenses
- your current housing situation/problem.
Based on the information that you provide, we will provide you with advice on next steps. If we think we can help you, we will arrange a housing needs appointment to review your case in more detail and give you further assistance.
Before your housing needs appointment, we will ask you to bring in documents to a customer ready appointment. You will need to provide a range of documents including proof of your identity, income and current address, and you will need to sign our written consent form. Your application cannot progress without these documents.
After we assess your housing needs, we will refer you to a specialist team to try to keep you in your home, or where this isn’t possible to source alternative accommodation for you.
We may complete credit reference checks as part of your assessment. With your consent, we will make reasonable enquiries with other organisations, as this will help us to reach a decision on your case.
Helping you to find an alternative home
Where staying in your current home is not an option, we will assess your housing needs using Barnet Council’s Housing Allocations Scheme. This assessment will determine what level of priority you will be given for rehousing and what type of housing you need. There is no application form for you to fill in. There is no waiting list or housing register.
To find out what we take into account you can download and read a summary or of Barnet Council’s Housing Allocations Scheme.
Our assessment will involve reviewing information that you provide and carrying out checks including:
- Previous address and residential history checks
- Credit and fraud checks
- Land registry searches and checks with other councils
- In cases where you are living with friends or family or renting privately, we will visit you at home and also talk to your landlord.
Once we have completed our assessment, we will let you know:
- Whether we will assist you through the Housing Allocations Scheme
- What type of housing is suitable for you (including size, rent level, location and floor level)
- What level of priority for rehousing you have been given (what ‘band’ you are in)
- How you can access our Let2Barnet scheme if you find your own private rented accommodation.
Some customers will not be assisted any further once their case has been assessed. Examples where this may happen include where:
- The household has savings and/or receives an income that is above a certain level
- A member of the household has been involved in proven anti-social behaviour or has been evicted for anti-social behaviour (this includes whilst living in temporary accommodation provided by Barnet Homes)
- A household has been evicted due to rent arrears (this includes arrears at temporary accommodation provided by Barnet Homes)
- A customer’s immigration status has changed and they no longer have recourse to public funds.