Affordable housing Apply for affordable housing

Apply for rented accommodation

Our housing stock is managed by Shropshire Towns and Rural Housing (STaR Housing), an arms-length management organisation. They advertise their available properties on Shropshire HomePoint, as well as advertising homes to rent from other housing associations (registered providers).

Most housing associations advertise through our choice-based letting scheme. If you join the council housing waiting list, you'll be able to bid for available housing association properties advertised through the scheme.

You can register on the Shropshire HomePoint website or contact them on 0300 303 8595.

Apply for low-cost home ownership

Shared ownership

If you're unable to afford to purchase a property outright, you can part-buy and part-rent your home. You can choose to buy any percentage you can afford eg a 10%, 25%, 50% or 75% share in your home. You pay rent on the share you don’t buy, and the rent is usually set at an affordable level of 2.75%. The bigger share you own, the less rent you pay. Some schemes enable you to increase your ownership - this is called staircasing. Available shared ownership homes are advertised on housing associations websites, or you can look on estates agents or online selling platforms who will have a filter for looking at Buying Schemes.

You can find more information about shared ownership on the GOV.UK website.

The Discount Market Sale (DMS)

The DMS model allows you to buy 100% of a property, but at a substantial discount off the open market value (usually at 60% of open market value). The buyer obtains a mortgage for the discounted price but doesn't pay rent on the remainder. If you buy a discount sale home, you can't purchase any shares in the property as it is a 'fixed equity' home.

When you sell your home, you'll have to sell it at the same discount percentage at which you bought it. Your home must be sold to someone who is unable to afford a home on the open market. Homes will be advertised in the usual way through estate agents/ online platforms and you'll be required to prove your eligibility by filling in a Shropshire Council application form.

Apply for the build your own affordable home, single plot exception site

Exception sites are granted planning permission as an exception to normal planning policies in order to meet a local need for affordable housing. This includes the provision of affordable housing for people who have a strong local connection to a specific area (eg a parish or group of parishes) who are unable to afford or secure open market housing in the area they need to live in.

Local needs criteria

To qualify for this scheme, applicants must:

  • Be in housing need
  • Be unable to access a suitable home currently available on the open market in the parish (or within 5km of the site)
  • Need to live locally
  • Have 'strong local connection' to the parish

Applicants will normally be the prospective occupiers of the proposed affordable dwelling, and speculative development of this tenure is not permitted.

Applicants will be required to enter into a S106 Agreement to secure planning permission and this will restrict the size, value and occupation of the dwelling indefinitely. The full information pack can be requested from affordablehousing@shropshire.gov.uk and more information on S106 Agreements can be found on our website. 

Process

All applications need to be submitted via email to affordablehousing@shropshire.gov.uk.

The application form can also be requested through this email, and needs to be completed in full with all supporting documents as listed in the checklist sent in the one email. We would therefore ask you to hold back any supporting documents and forms until the checklist is fully complete.  

Applications will be rejected if this process is not followed. Rejection will not prevent the applicant/agent from re-applying with a completed application. 

We will acknowledge applications once we have received them and will aim to validate within 10 working days, depending on seasonal holidays, this may take longer. In terms of a decision this may take up to 4-6 weeks, again dependent on workload.

We encourage all applicants to check if their site is suitable for a single plot exception/ build your own affordable home before filling in an application for by applying for a pre application planning permission.

As a requirement of the section 106 legal agreement, the property cannot change hands without our written consent. This will only be given if we are satisfied that the new purchaser is paying the prevailing ‘affordable’ price and meets the local needs or cascade criteria as defined in the section 106 legal agreement. For further information on this, check out our sales and resales of affordable homes page.