How to apply
A guide to renting one of our homes
We have put together some answers to questions we frequently get asked about renting a home with us, we hope you find them helpful.
Click here to read our lettings Policy If you have any questions click here to contact us
Devon Home Choice and Local Authorities
We advertise all of our properties on Devon Home choice (www.devonhomechoice.com/) which is a Choice Based Lettings systems (CBLs) which is run in partnership with the Local Authorities within Devon. Before you can bid on a property, you need to register and you will be given a banding according to your housing need. Once this is done, you will need to log on every week and bid on properties.
New available properties are live from midnight on Wednesday till midnight the following Monday. (No properties are listed on a Tuesday) The list of properties will change each week. Cornerstone will not always have available properties to bid on.
Choice based lettings schemes are designed to introduce an element of choice for people applying for council and housing association homes and existing tenants who want a transfer. People are given a priority banding based on their assessed housing need and they bid for properties which are advertised by landlords.
Banding is assessed and decided on by the local authority and we don’t have any say in this. If you feel that the banding is not accurate, then you would need to speak to the relevant local authority. Click here to find your local authority (www.gov.uk/find-local-council)
Our properties sit within four local councils.
Exeter City Council
East Devon District Council
Mid Devon District Council
Teignbridge District Council
There may be restrictions on the property that you do not meet for example number of people per bedroom is exceeded or if there is an age restriction in place or the property requires a local connection. Check the details of the listing. In the first instance, you should contact the local authority/Devon Home Choice for help.
Devon Home Choice have also created a ‘Common Myths and Frequently asked questions’ guide to help answer further questions. Click here to read the guide
Introduction to Devon Home Choice
Our properties and processes
We are not able to give the property number until you have been successful in the bidding process and we have contacted you in order to arrange a viewing. This is because tenants are still living within the property and we would not want their privacy disturbed while they are moving out.
When the advert on Devon home choice is live you can place your bid. When the advert has closed, the system will sort all of the bids in order of banding (highest band and longest length in that band at the top). We then work our way through the shortlist, from the top down, although occasionally we will give additional preferences to households who have been given a homeless duty by their local authority or to applicants needing specific adaptations that a property already has. Depending on how many bids there have been for this property, this can take some time.
We will try and arrange access for you to view the property in the first week that it is empty, providing that it is safe to do so. It is important to keep an open mind at the viewing, as it is unlikely you will be seeing the finished product. We will try and give you as much information as possible as to what work we will do before its ready to let.
We ask for 1 months rent in advance before sign up and key handover is able to go ahead. Payment can be made by calling the office and paying with a credit or debit card or by bank transfer. If you are paying by bank transfer you must make sure the payment has reached our account before your sign up appointment. It is a condition of your tenancy agreement that rent and service charges are paid in advance on the first day of each month.
We will arrange a signup appointment when we know an anticipated date that the property will be ready to let. This can vary depending on how much work is needed in the property, but you will be kept up to date by your Housing Officer.
We do not normally provide carpets or other floor coverings. If there are floor coverings when you move in these are gifted to you and you will need to replace them if they become damaged. We may also ask you to remove them when you move out if they are not in a suitable condition for the next tenant.
Gifting is when something is left in the property, for example, carpets from a previous tenant or a shed in the garden, and it means that it comes with the property but is not something that we will maintain or repair.
Social rented are generally older homes or new homes built using government grants or funding to support the development of much needed homes. The government grants we receive to build these homes mean rents are much lower than both affordable and private sector market rents, normally around 50%
Affordable rent has been introduced by the Government to allow social housing providers to charge up to 80% of the local market rent.
