The law on housing eligibility
The main law on eligibility is contained in the Housing Act 1996, which allows the government to introduce regulations about eligibility for allocations and for homelessness services.
The current regulations are the Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (England) Regulations 2006. They can be found at Allocations and homelessness regulations plus some amendments at allocations and homelessness amendments and allocations and homelessness more amendments.
Regulation 3
Regulation 3 sets out the classes of people subject to immigration control and entitled to go on the housing register as eligible:
- Those granted refugee status (Class A)
- Those granted exceptional leave to remain which is not subject to restrictions on recourse to public funds (Class B)
- Those with settled status (Class C) (indefinite leave to remain, residence), except:
- Those who do not pass the habitual residence test
- Those who arrived as sponsored immigrants subject to an undertaking and the undertaking or the arrival was less than five years ago unless the sponsor has died (in which case they have the same rights as other settled people)
- A person who has humanitarian protection granted under the Immigration Rules (Class D).
Regulation 4(1)
Regulation 4(1) covers people not subject to immigration control but who are nonetheless ineligible for an allocation:
- Those who are not habitually resident in the UK, Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic of Ireland
- Those whose only right to reside in the UK is derived from his status as a jobseeker or the family member of a jobseeker
- Those whose only right to reside is the initial right to reside for a period not exceeding three months under Regulation 13 of the EEA regulations.
Regulation 4(2)
Regulation 4(2) makes it clear that, aside from what is said in Regulation 4(1), the following categories of people ARE eligible for allocation of council housing (or a nomination to a HA):
- Workers
- Self-employed persons
- Accession workers who are qualified because they are from an A8 country, working and have applied to be on the worker registration scheme or because they are from Romania or Bulgaria and working under the authorisation scheme or exempted from it (footnote1)
- A family member of one of the above groups
- A person who has a permanent right to reside in the UK because they are:
- an EEA worker or a self-employed person who has ceased economic activity. This will arise where someone has reached retirement age or (for workers only) taken early retirement and they have lived in the UK continuously for more than three years prior to termination and they were economically active for the 12 months leading up to the termination
- an EEA worker or self employed person who has stopped work as a result of permanent incapacity and either he resided in the UK continuously for more than 2 years prior to the termination or the incapacity arose from an accident at work or occupational disease which entitled him to a pension payable in the UK
- an EEA national has lived continuously in the UK for 3 years but is now economically active in another EEA state but has retained a place of residence in the UK which s/he returns to at least once a week
- the family member of a worker or self-employed EEA national, where the EEA national has died, the family member was resident with them before their death and either they had worked in the UK continuously for the two years prior to death or their death was the result of an accident at work or occupational disease
- A person who left Montserrat after 1 November 1995 as a result of the volcanic eruption (footnote2)
- A person who is in the UK as a result of being deported, expelled or removed by compulsion to the UK from another country
- A person who left Lebanon on or after 12 July 2006 because of armed conflict there. This exemption only has effect until 31 January 2007.
You can also find the guidance issued by government to local authorities on how to carry out their homelessness duties, which has many useful sections on eligibility and related matters at Code of Guidance.
Footnote 1: The arrangements for Bulgarian and Romanian workers were added by SI 2006/ 3340, The Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (England) (Amendment) (No 2) Regulations 2006 which came into effect on 1 January 2007, when those two countries joined the EU.
Footnote 2: SI 2006/2527 which removed this category from those subject to immigration control does not do this for people not subject to immigration control.