Common Allocations Policy April 2025

If you are made an offer of housing, all partners will offer you a Scottish Secure Tenancy (SST) in line with our legal responsibilities. An SST means you can keep your tenancy for as long as you want as long as you do not break the terms of your tenancy agreement. If you do, we can take legal action to end your tenancy.

In a limited number of situations, we may offer you a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy. As a Short Scottish Secure tenant you have many of the same rights as a Scottish Secure tenant.

However, your rights are limited in terms of eviction, sub-letting and succession.

Your Short Scottish Secure Tenancy agreement will state that your tenancy is for a fixed period of time (at least six months). If by the end of that time, neither you nor your landlord has requested that the lease ends, it will renew itself for the same amount of time again (for example, for another six months).

We can only give Short Scottish Secure Tenancies in very specific circumstances. This is defined by law in Section 37, Schedule 6 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 and associated amendments in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014. These circumstances will apply to you if:

• you have previously been evicted for anti social behaviour in the last three years
• you or someone you live with has an anti social behaviour order
• you, a member of your household or a visitor has been involved in antisocial behaviour in or near their home within the last three years
• you are moving to Perth and Kinross to take up or seek employment
• where you're living is scheduled for development and we need you to move to allow us to get the work done
• you are homeless and the property is let to you on a temporary basis for more than six months
• you need housing support to help you maintain your tenancy
• we are sub-letting the property to you: this means we lease the property we're offering you from another social landlord

In all cases we will serve you with a notice, informing you that we are offering you a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy.

This notice will also state why you are being offered a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy and the period for which the tenancy is being offered.

If you have been given a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy because of a previous eviction for anti social behaviour or because someone you live has an antisocial behaviour order (ASBO) served against them, the Short Scottish Secure Tenancy will be converted to a Scottish Secure Tenancy at the end of 12 months, provided the landlord hasn't given you a notice to quit.

Your landlord will notify you when your tenancy agreement changes, and will tell you what your new rights and responsibilities are.

Joint tenancies

Under this policy you can apply to any of the partners to have a joint tenancy with someone who is staying with you or someone you intend to stay with you.

We encourage joint applicants, of the same or opposite sex, to apply for joint tenancies to ensure that they have similar legal rights.

Houses in multiple occupation (HMOs)

We will never make an offer of housing that would result in three or more unrelated people living in a property, as this would create a house in multiple occupation (HMO).

The only exception to this policy is where the property is being leased to a support provider to provide specialist accommodation for community care needs or homeless supported or temporary accommodation.

Adapted properties

Adaptations such as ramps and level access showers are expensive to install and remove and the process can take time. It makes sense that wherever possible, homes that have already been specially adapted should be made available to people who can make use of those adaptations.

If you have adaptations in your property which you no longer require or which you did not require in the first place, we may ask you to move to an alternative property. This only applies to tenants of the partners who live in Perth and Kinross.