We are currently facing extremely high demand for council housing registration. Due to this, time required to process has extended and can now take up to 12 weeks on receipt of your application form and supporting information.
To apply to rent a council property you will first need to register with our choice based lettings scheme. This allows you to make a choice about where you live.
Who can join the housing register?
To join the housing register you must:
- be aged 18 or over (16 or 17 in exceptional circumstances)
- be living in the UK legally
You also need to meet one of the following criteria:
- You are an existing Sandwell Council or housing association tenant living in Sandwell.
- You have lived in Sandwell for at least the past two years continuously and you do not own a property.
- You don't live in Sandwell and do not own a property but have a close family member (mother, father, brother, sister or adult child) who has lived in Sandwell for at least the past two years continuously.
- You are Armed Forces personnel and have served in the regular forces for two years prior to your application.
- You are a bereaved spouse or civil partner of someone serving in the regular forces where your partner's death is attributable to their service and you can no longer live in Ministry of Defence accommodation.
- You are a seriously injured, ill or disabled current or former reservist whose injury, illness or disability is attributable to your service.
- You are a care leaver of Sandwell Children’s Trust aged 25 or below.
There are some groups of people who do not qualify to apply for council accommodation by law and details of these groups can be found in the Housing Allocations Policy.
How to apply
Please watch the video below and If you meet the criteria, you can apply to join the housing register.
Once you have submitted your Housing Registration form through the MySandwell portal, your application will be transferred to the Housing Solutions Team for processing. This is why the status on your MySandwell account will show as closed.
In Sandwell, as in other parts of the country there are more people looking for council housing than there are properties available.
Unfortunately, due to an increase in demand for council housing, we are currently unable to assess applications to join the Housing Register within our published service standards.
Anyone completing a form at the present time is unlikely to be contacted for at least 12 weeks regarding their application.
We apologise for the delays and can assure you that we are doing everything we can to address them. Applications will be addressed in date order and applicants will be contacted in due course.