What is a mutual exchange?
A mutual exchange is also known as a home swap. When this service isn’t suspended, if you are a social housing tenant, you can apply to swap your home with someone else in a similar home somewhere else in the UK.
You can find someone to exchange your home with through HomeSwapper. This is a national home exchange service that’s free to use if you’re already living in any of our homes.
Through the HomeSwapper you can exchange your home with anyone living in:
- One of our homes
- Another housing association’s home
- A local authority home.
How does it work?
When this service is reactivated, to swap homes you will need to go through the following steps:
- Contact the Customer Contact Centre to check if you’re eligible
- Register on HomeSwapper
- Create a profile for your home and describe what you’re looking for
- Browse available homes and see suitable matches
- When you find a home you’re interested in, chat to the tenant and arrange a viewing
- If you both agree you want to swap, contact us for a swap application form. We’ll need the name and address of the person you want to swap with and the details of their landlord
- Both landlords will run checks to make sure you each qualify for your new homes.
What is the current situation?
Since the outbreak of coronavirus we’ve suspended our mutual exchange policy and procedure, which means we’re not starting or completing any home swaps. We did this to follow government guidance to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. Recently, the government guidance around moving home changed, but we need to take steps to make sure home swapping is safe before we start the programme again.
What next?
We are reviewing our procedures for mutual exchanges in line with new government guidance to make sure it’s safe for everyone involved in the process.
There are several steps we need to take before we can start home swaps again. We won’t consider restarting exchanges until at least 4 July, in line with businesses such as hairdressers reopening, unless there are other changes in government advice in the meantime.
We will keep you updated as soon as there is a change, so it’s worth checking back here from time to time.
Further information
You can visit our website for more information about home swapping (mutual exchanges) and how to move house.
For government advice on home moving during the coronavirus outbreak visit gov.uk.