Shock as ConDems do something useful!

[darkwaterfairy]

BBC: The government says it is making it easier for social housing tenants to swap homes nationwide - to move nearer to family or to find work.

I approve of this!

...there's just a few niggles I have with it.

1. As far as the Gov, my Housing Assn(HA), and Homeswapper were saying, HomeSwapper was THE system, the only one, and all but the few  HAs/Councils

Comments

[darkwaterfairy]

I've yet to actually go through the process, but from poking around the site, HS seems to be rather barebones, like ebay, or Fetlife with the forums stripped out. Tenants interesting in swapping make an account and fill in the details of home and themselves, including postcode location, any photos they like, and their email and phone details. Then you can search for other homes matching your requirements, and thus get the tenants contact details. It is up to your to contact them, arrange viewings or whatever and agree on swapping. Apparently 3/4/+ 'ring' swaps are not uncommon. Once you are agreed, you approach your relevant social landlords, and assuming you don't have like arrears or a record of misconduct the SLs seem obliged to agree to it. Cue contracts and moving