Owner Occupiers

Following the recent changes to the HomeFinder Choice Based Lettings Policy, all NEW applicants who are owner occupiers will only be allowed to register an application if they have a housing need and couldn’t afford to purchase an alternative property to resolve their housing need.

Applicants who own their current home, or have a financial interest in another property, will only be allowed to register a HomeFinder application if:

They have an identified housing need, and
They do not have the financial ability to purchase an alternative suitable property, compared to the average house price in the Bassetlaw district.

If you are an Owner Occupier, or you have a financial interest in a property, you will need to complete an Owner Occupier Assessment Form. This form can be collected from our offices at Queens Buildings, Worksop or 17B The Square, Retford. You can request a form from customer.services@bassetlaw.gov.uk or housing.registration@bassetlaw.gov.uk.

The form can be downloaded here: Owner Occupier Assessment Form

Please note that Owner Occupier Assessment Forms will only be accepted if they are fully completed and signed by the applicant.

Once you have completed and returned the Form and all required documents, we will assess your application and notify you of the outcome in writing.

Required Documents

Once you have registered your HomeFinder application, we will write to you by letter or email to request documents from you.

You’ll need to provide:

Documents to verify your identity and current circumstances. Please see our full list of Acceptable Documents.
Evidence of your Current Financial Circumstances to support your Owner Occupier Assessment Form.
Evidence of your Housing Need.

All required documents must be provided within 28 days of our request. If required documents are not received within 28 days, your HomeFinder application will be closed.

Your application may be re-opened if you provide all required documents later than 28 days but you may lose waiting time as a result.

Current Financial Circumstances Documents

All of the following documents are required from Owner Occupier applicants:

Evidence of your household’s current total income for the last 3 months – this includes any wages, benefits and other income that your household receives.
- We can accept bank statements, payslips and benefits letters.
Confirmation of the property’s current value dated within the last 12 months
- This should ideally be a formal document which confirms the property’s valuation from an estate agent.
Evidence of your outstanding mortgage dated within the last 3 months
- This should always be a mortgage statement.
Evidence of any mortgage arrears dated within the last 3 months
- This should always be a mortgage statement
If there have been any charges placed against your property, you must provide evidence of those charges – this could, for example, be a Disabled Facilities Grant
- This should ideally be a Land Registry Record but you may be able to provide other evidence to demonstrate the property charge.
- If there are no charges against your property then this evidence won’t be needed.
3 months’ bank statements for ALL bank accounts, for applicants AND joint applicants
- This must include all current and savings accounts that you have.
Evidence of any other assets – e.g. proof of ownership or sale of other property that you own or have a stake in, such as caravans, cars or land
- Evidence of other financial assets like bonds.
We may request further information from you if necessary.
- This might include more bank or mortgage statements.

If all required documentation is not received, your application will be closed and you will not be allowed to register.

Evidence of Housing Need

You must provide evidence of your housing need. If you do not have a housing need, or do not provide evidence of your housing need, your application will be cancelled.

Examples of what is a housing need:

You have mobility problems because of medical conditions that you have.
Your current accommodation is overcrowded, due to natural growth of your household.
You are unable to afford your mortgage payments due to a change of circumstances.

Examples of what is NOT a housing need:

You are subject to anti-social behaviour in your current home. You would be expected to pursue action to resolve these problems through the Council’s Anti-Social Behaviour Team or Nottinghamshire Police.
Under-occupancy. You would be expected to sell your current home to downsize accommodation.
Your property requires repairs which can be completed while you are living in the property. As an owner occupier, you would be expected to finance the repairs to your own home yourself.
You have a medical need that is a result of a temporary injury and will heal with time.
You have a housing need, but that housing need is temporary and will be resolved with time.

If your housing need is due to medical conditions

You must go through the Medical process and be considered by the Medical Panel before your application can be fully assessed.

This means that you must provide the following:

Complete a Medical Form
Provide a GP Patient Summary
Provide an Occupational Therapy Housing Needs Assessment

Advice on the Medical process, including download links for Medical Forms, can be found on our Medical page.

How we assess Owner Occupier applications

Once all required documents have been received, we will assess your current financial circumstances to determine if you have financial ability to purchase an alternate property that would meet your housing needs.

To do this, we look at:

What equity would be available from your current home (or the property that you have a financial interest in) if you were to sell the property
What your likely mortgage capacity is based on your household income
The total value of your savings, investments or bonds
The total value of your other assets

You will be assessed as having the financial ability to purchase a property if the total of the above is greater than the average house price in Bassetlaw, as set by the Office for National Statistics (please see Housing prices in Bassetlaw; opens in a new tab).

If you are assessed as having the financial ability to purchase an alternate property, your application will be closed and we will notify you in writing of our decision, including the reasons for our decision.

If you are assessed as not having the financial ability to purchase an alternate property, your application will be assessed and activated. We will notify you in writing when you are able to bid.

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