Mutual Exchange
A Mutual Home Swap gives council tenants the opportunity to live in the property and area that meets their needs. So if you are a council or housing association tenant this maybe the only way for you to move to the property that you require. Mutual exchanges may involve anything from 2 tenants to many more than 2, but be careful a mutual exchange with too many involved is more prone to faltering.
Under Section 92 of the Housing Act 1985 all secure council tenants of have a right to Mutual Exchanges with another secure council tenant. This was further extended by the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, which allowed secure council tenants to also exchange with assured tenants of registered housing associations or charitable housing trusts. However, many of these have opted out of providing information about their tenants wishing to exchange leaving the tenants to search various media to acquire this information.
Calling all social landlord tenants wishing to move home! It is very simple and quick to move home by means of a mutual exchange. You find the swap(s) that you are interested in being a part of when an agreement has been reached between all parties each tenant applies to their landlord for the exchange. Many take the details over the phone to reduce the time frame, as the landlord has only 42 days within which to deny or agree the exchange(s). There is no magic formula for getting the mutual exchange that you require! It can take many hours of website searching, many subscription payments to various websites, and many cases a lot of disappointment and irritation. But when your mutual exchange has been agreed, approved, and complete the satisfaction, happiness, and contentment achieved can be second to none.
Once you have found your mutual exchange you need to inform your landlord, who then has 42 days within which to disallow or agree the mutual exchange. It may take a much shorter period of time to get the “thumbs up” from your landlord depending on how quickly the housing officer comes to inspect your property. Once the agreement to the mutual exchange has been received the tenant needs to give 28 days notice to his/her landlord of intention to end their tenancy, after this time the exchange date should be set.
If your council or housing association property is over crowded, children need their own rooms, a new baby on the way OR your children have left home and your property is too big for you. Then a mutual exchange maybe the only way to satisfactorily find the home that is right for you. It is the process where by the tenant finds a property that they would like and make arrangements with the other tenant(s) involved to swap homes.
A mutual exchange can be stressful with so many things to organise and pack and unlike a transfer through your social housing landlord you do not get a few days to a week to move as it is not an unoccupied property that you are moving to. Your actual move should take place in a day so that at the same time that you are moving into your new home your counterpart(s) are also moving into their new home. With this in mind a mutual exchange is probably the hardest home move to make and tips and advice should be saught to make it as straightforward as possible. After all, there is always going to be something you overlooked!
The process of a Mutual Exchange is where both or all parties wishing to move have agreed that they are willing to move into each other council, housing association or charitable housing trust properties. The tenants swapping tenancies thereby, becoming responsible for each other’s rent and tenancy obligations do this. Mutual exchanges give social housing tenants the opportunity to live in the property and area that meets their needs.
