Berwickshire Housing Association, Eildon Housing Association and Waverley Housing; three major landlords in the Borders, together with Cairn Housing Association, a national housing provider and Scottish Borders Council, have introduced Borders Choice Homes using the homehunt allocations package. This makes applying for housing easier.

All that is required for access to Border Choice Homes is completion of a short form which replaces the traditional lengthy Housing Application form. On completion the form can be returned to any participating landlord’s housing office. Properties available for rent are advertised each week in the Berwickshire News, the Southern Reporter, at all landlords’ offices, on freephone 0800 587 4868, and on the internet at www.homehunt.info.

As it is possible that more that one person will apply for a vacant house or flat, there are some simple rules to help us decide who should receive the first offer of the property.

Borders Choice Homes covers the Scottish Borders area. We hope you like this new approach to letting houses.

Happy hunting!

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Registering

You need to register with us before you can apply for a house - but registration is a very quick and easy process.

All we need is your name, address and date of birth, and the names and dates of birth of everyone who will move with you, and we ask you to sign a few simple statements to confirm that you are eligible for housing under our scheme.

Registration is completed 'whilst you wait' at any of our local offices (or you can apply by post, telephone, or online, although these methods will take longer as we will post out a short form for you to sign and return).

As a registered homehunter, you will receive a homehunt™ Registration Pack. This includes information about how to apply for advertised houses, and forms to register for Priority Passes (which are explained in the downloadable leaflet at the bottom of the page).

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Applying

Once registered you can apply for any property that is advertised (as long as the property is suitable - e.g. it would not result in overcrowding, or there are no restrictions on who can apply stated in the advertisement - for example, sheltered housing is normally reserved for those of retirement age and above).

When you see an advert for a property you are interested in, you should apply for it by telling us your registration number and the property's address. You can do this in person at any of our local offices, or by phone, by post, or online - but you must do this before the closing date and time specified in the advert. If you have a Priority Pass, it will be recognised automatically.

You can apply for as many advertised properties as you wish at any one time. However, if you qualify for more than one offer at the same time, we will assume that the property you apply for first is your first choice, and so on, in the order you chose to apply. If you qualify for an offer on one house, we will disregard any later applications you have made, so the order in which you apply could very be important to you.

Similarly, if there is nothing you like advertised, or perhaps it is not a convenient time to move, there is no need to apply (although if you have a Priority Pass you risk losing it - see Losing Priority Passes in the downloadable document at the bottom of the page). All we ask is that you confirm once a year that you wish to remain Registered with us for housing.

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Downloadable homehunt Guide

You can find all the information stated above and more by viewing or downloading the following file: homehunt.pdf 550kb

To view this file, you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5 or above, it is freely available for use and can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com

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Data Protection:

Data Protection: Berwickshire, Eildon Housing Association and Waverley Housing (the partnering landlords)are the data controllers, whose registered offices are 53 Newtown Street, Duns, TD11 3AU, Eildon House, Dingleton Road, Melrose, TD6 9QY and 27 North Bridge Street, Hawick, TD9 9BD respectively.

The information you provide on this form and other additional related information you may provider together with any that is obtained from a third party will be held and used in accordance with our Allocations and Data Protection Policies. The partnering landlords will use this information solely for the purpose of operating the Borders Choice Homes service and for administrative and statistical purposes. The partnering landlords will not disclose any information without your written consent unless it is required to do so by law or our regulators.

By returning this form you consent to you processing data about you that is defined by the Data Protection Act as sensitive. Examples include information about health racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, committed or alleged offences including court proceedings and sentences. This data will only be processed where absolutely necessary.

Please inform us of any changes to your personal information; we will then update them to keep your records up to date and accurate. You have the right to see and receive a copy of any personal information (for which we may charge a small fee) that is held by the partnering landlords and to have any inaccuracies corrected.