Apply for a council or housing association home

Currently there are around 28,500 people on Lambeth’s housing register.

Anyone can apply to join the housing register, however, only those who have a priority housing need will be eligible. 

Even if you are eligible to join the housing register, you may never be offered a council or housing association property, and if you are offered a property, it will take many years. 

You should look at other housing options, such as renting privately.

Who can join the housing register

To be eligible to join the housing register in Lambeth you must be:

• living in Lambeth now and have done so for the past 2 years, or have left the armed forces in the past 5 years, and
• at least 18 years old.

At least one of the following priority housing needs must apply for you to make an application:

• Someone in the household has a medical need to move.
• You have an Assured Tenancy Housing Association home which is larger than you need, and you want to move to a smaller home, or your home was purpose-built for a wheelchair user, and you no longer need that sort of home.
• Your household is overcrowded.
• You are sharing a bathroom and/or kitchen with others who are not household members included in your application.
• You are homeless but not owed a main homeless duty by any local authority.

Please note: A household is all the people you wish to include in your application, it is not always the same as the people you are living with now. If you are currently sharing with people not in your household (i.e., other family members or flatmates), be clear what spaces you have sole use of in your application, and which you share.

How the housing register works

The housing register is prioritised into bands:

• Band A: Emergency and strategic priority
• Band B: High priority
• Band C: Medium priority

Following your application, if you are eligible to join the housing register you will be told which band you have been allocated and the number of bedrooms you are eligible for. 

Find out how bands and number of bedrooms are allocated in our Housing Allocations Policy 2024 (PDF 506KB).

The average waiting time differs based on the band and number of bedrooms you are allocated.

*lets to applicants in Band C are rare with the majority of applicants never being offered a property.

Apply to join the housing register

If you are an existing Lambeth council tenant and you wish to move, you can join the housing register by applying for a transfer. You can also look at swapping or exchanging your home. Visit our buy, exchange or transfer webpage.

All housing register applications are made online. 

Start your housing application

You will need to provide information about every household member, so make sure you have the following information before you start the application:

• your national insurance number
• your address history
• any benefits you claim and your income
• the full name and date of birth for all household members