housing application pack

Personal Housing Advice

We offer appointments with a Housing Officer, who can give you information and personal housing advice based on your circumstances.

Housing Application Pack

Shetland Islands Council and Hjaltland Housing Association operate a joint housing register. This means that by completing one form you can be considered for housing with both landlords. If you wish, you can opt out of being housed by either landlord.

The benefits of a shared application between the SIC and Hjaltland Housing Association include:

a simpler, fairer and less time consuming way to apply for housing.
a wider choice of landlords and property types for applicants.
a better match between property and applicant at allocation.
promoting mobility for existing tenants between SIC and Hjaltland Housing Association.

Anyone aged at least 16 is entitled to be apply for housing.

Existing tenants (of either the Shetland Islands Council or Hjaltland Housing Association) may apply for a transfer to another social rented house.

HomeSwapper applicants can also apply (must be public sector tenants in Council, Housing Association or similar housing in the U.K. and be registered with the HomeSwapper Scheme).

To apply for housing, please download and complete the forms below.

Applicants with Hjaltland Housing Association can express a preference for up to 6 different areas and can change any of those areas whenever they want.

As Hjaltland run a choice based lettings system applicants can apply for any property they are interested in no matter where it is as long as they meet the letting criteria for that property. Hjaltland Housing Assocation advertise available properties in The Shetland Times and online at www.hjaltland.org.uk

If you would like more information on SIC housing policies, you can view our Policies and Procedures here.

The Council and Hjaltland’s Nomination Agreement

A nomination agreement is in place between Hjaltland Housing Association and Shetland Islands Council. In summary, 50% of properties let by Hjaltland each year will be allocated through the nomination arrangement and follow the choice based lettings system.Properties let through the nomination arrangement are advertised as either SIC nomination general needs applicants or SIC nomination homeless applicants.

If you require any help in completing the form, please contact:

SIC Housing 01595 744360 email housing@shetland.gov.uk or
Hjaltland Housing Association 01595 694986 email mail@hjaltland.org

Shetland Islands Council - Housing Service
Development Services
6 North Ness Business Park
LERWICK
Shetland
ZE1 0LZ

Hjaltland Housing Association
2 Harbour Street
LERWICK
Shetland
ZE1 0LR

Full and up-to-date information in the application form

It is important that the application form reflects the applicant’s full circumstances, some of which may be of a personal nature, but please be assured all applications are confidential.

If an applicant is not sure whether a piece of information about their circumstances is important, staff are happy to advise. It is better to include too much information on the application than too little and risk housing need not being identified accurately.

If applicants remember something they forgot to put on the form after they have submitted it, or if their circumstances change, they should let staff know in writing as soon as possible so that their application form can be amended and the points total adjusted if necessary.

What happens once I've handed in the application?

Staff go through the form carefully and points are awarded through the allocations system in line with the current policy. The points awarded for different categories of housing need are detailed in the Allocation Policy Leaflet (PDF).

The applicant will be sent a letter confirming the number of points allocated and the areas he/she has chosen.

Please remember that positions on a list change from week to week, according to whether other applicants come onto or leave the waiting list or whether the circumstances of other applicants change.