Under Occupancy: 126 households waiting to downsize

Monday 05 November 2018

126 householders are waiting to downsize from their current States housing property, Employment & Social Security has confirmed to Express.

Following a change in the way waiting lists for public housing works in Guernsey, which streamlined the entire system into one standalone list, it was claimed that large numbers of people are still waiting to move out of family sized properties into smaller homes, while others wait for larger houses to come available.

As part of the process of informing current tenants about the change to the waiting list system, Housing staff have also been finding out whether States tenants are living in the correct size of housing to meet their needs.

"Normally we will review a tenancy every five years, unless there has been a change of circumstances in the meantime, which would trigger a review earlier. [But] part of this process for our existing tenants includes whether they are in the correct size of accommodation to meet their household need," a spokesperson for Employment & Social Security said.

"This could be for example when a grown up child moves out of the family home, creating an under occupancy of the property. Once this has been identified the tenant would then be placed on the waiting list for the correct size property.

"We do have to manage any transfer of accommodation within our existing stock as it becomes available and we continue to build properties in conjunction with GHA which are predominantly one and two bedroom to meet the higher demand for those."

Pictured: Edward T Wheadon House, the home of States housing, under the Committee for Employment and Social Security. 

There are currently 244 households waiting for a property on the new combined waiting list.  That new list is designed to keep the whole process simple, by allowing the family at the top to get access to a States or GHA property whenever it becomes available. 

Of those 244, a fair portion are waiting to downsize, rather than to move into a house in the first place.

"We have 27 households currently in two bed properties who should ideally be accommodated in a one bed property and 99 households in three bedroomed properties that need to downsize into either one or two bedroom properties.," the spokesperson added.

"We currently have a total of 244 households on our waiting list which includes 52 new applicants as well as those eligible for a transfer. 139 households are waiting for one-bed properties, 65 are waiting for two-bed properties and 27 waiting for three-bed properties.

"It is not possible to give a clear indication of how long a tenant could wait for a transfer if they are under-occupying a property, as it will depend on how quickly properties become available, but the high demand for one and two bed properties will mean a longer wait than for three-bed homes."

To read more about the new waiting list system for public housing, click here.