The route you are searching is the one that works least. It is not the only one.

Yes, and being told otherwise is the most expensive misunderstanding in this whole area. The prevention duty and the relief duty are owed to every eligible applicant. Priority need is not a condition of either. It determines only whether the main housing duty follows once relief has ended. So a single person with no children, no disability and no vulnerability is still owed reasonable steps to help them stay where they are or find somewhere else — and those steps in practice include a personalised housing plan, negotiation with a landlord, referral to a deposit or bond scheme, and often money. What you are less likely to be owed is accommodation itself, and that is the part people conflate. Do not rule yourself out of priority need either. It is a judgement for the council, not a category you can check yourself against a list. Vulnerability through illness, disability, age, having been in care, fleeing violence or leaving an institution can all engage it, and the threshold for interim accommodation is only that the council has reason to believe you may be in priority need — the statutory guidance calls that “a deliberately low threshold”. The practical advice is simple: approach, do not self-assess, and if you are turned away at the counter ask for the refusal in writing and the name of the person giving it. An informal brush-off is not a decision, and only a decision can be reviewed.

Long enough that for many households it is not a plan, and we would rather say so than encourage you to wait on it. In 2024–25 there were 341,421 households on London local authority waiting lists, the highest in over a decade and a quarter of the England total. In 2023–24, 15,942 households moved into a council or housing association home in London. That is roughly 21 households waiting for every letting in a year — and we should be straight that those two figures come from different years, because we could not find both for a matched one. The reason so little comes free is turnover. London’s social housing churn rate was 2.5% in 2023–24, the lowest of any English region; the next lowest was 4.7%. By size, from the only systematic published survey: around 844 days for a one-bedroom home London-wide, 1,175 days in Inner London, 557 in Outer London, 2,102 days for a three-bed in East London and 2,304 days for four or more bedrooms. And those numbers are better than reality, because they are averages for households who were housed — everyone still waiting is missing from them. Two single-source figures cut through it. Islington expected to offer a home to 6% of its register in 2025. Barnet reported the wait for four or more bedrooms in the lower bands as “currently up to 33 years”. Join anyway — it is free, it runs alongside everything else, and time on the list cannot be recovered later. Just do not let it be the only thing you are doing.

Two of them are duties to help you; only one is a duty to house you. The prevention duty is owed where you are eligible and threatened with homelessness within 56 days. The council must take reasonable steps to help you either stay where you are — which it should consider first — or secure somewhere else. The relief duty is owed where you are eligible and already homeless. The council must take reasonable steps to help you secure accommodation with a reasonable prospect of being available for at least six months. It lasts 56 days. Neither requires priority need. The main housing duty is the one people mean by “the council will house me”, and it requires all four of: eligible, homeless, in priority need, and not intentionally homeless. It cannot arise until relief has ended. So the sequence matters. Relief ending does not mean you get housed; it means the question of the main duty is finally reached. Separately, and much faster, there is the interim accommodation duty, which is what actually gets a roof over someone: where the council has reason to believe you may be homeless, eligible and in priority need, it must accommodate you, immediately, without waiting for any of the above. One rule worth quoting back: where a council thinks you are unlikely to be owed the main duty, it must not limit or reduce what it does during relief. That is in the guidance in terms, precisely because the temptation runs the other way.

Nothing, since 1 May 2026 — and this is the correction most likely to catch you out, because the old rule was correct for years. A valid section 21 notice expiring within 56 days used to make a private tenant threatened with homelessness, which opened the prevention duty. Section 21 is gone. The trigger is now that you are likely to lose your home within 56 days, or that you have a valid section 8 notice expiring within 56 days. The transitional position: section 21 notices served before 1 May 2026 remain valid only where the landlord applied for a possession order by 31 July 2026. Read the practical effect carefully, because it cuts both ways. The new wording is in one respect wider than the old one: “likely to lose your home within 56 days” does not require any notice at all, so a tenant who knows the landlord is selling, or who cannot pay next month’s rent, can be threatened with homelessness without a piece of paper. That is more generous than the old test, and almost nobody uses it. The other change to know: a council can no longer discharge its duty by offering you an assured shorthold tenancy — a private sector offer must now be an assured periodic tenancy. Housing associations remain exempt from that. And the old special rules about reapplying within two years of a private sector offer no longer apply, except to offers accepted before 1 May 2026.

Usually yes, and usually only if you deal with it actively rather than waiting to be assessed. 91% of London boroughs have debt-related disqualification clauses in their allocation policies, against 88% for England as a whole, and 44% of the households disqualified include at least one child under 18. So it is a real and widespread barrier. But disqualification is generally a policy position rather than a legal bar, and councils commonly admit applicants who agree a plan to address the debt. The move is therefore to propose one in writing before you are refused. Get free debt advice first, because whatever you offer will be held to you, and a plan you cannot keep is worse than no plan at all. Then there is the exclusion nobody expects. Applicants are being disqualified at the pre-tenancy check stage on the ground that their income is too low to afford a social rent — a catch-22 the London Assembly described, since households can then fall into arrears where housing benefit does not cover the full rent. The Assembly asked government to prevent councils excluding applicants on grounds of low income, with a response sought by June 2026. We could not confirm whether that response has been given. Whatever the reason, insist on the decision in writing. A council must notify you in writing of any decision affecting your chance of an allocation and tell you of your right to request a review. That right is the whole point of getting it on paper.

It is the fastest thing in the system and the least well known. Where a council has reason to believe that you may be homeless, eligible and in priority need, it must secure accommodation for you while it makes enquiries. The statutory guidance describes this as “a deliberately low threshold”, and every element of it is framed around what the council may believe rather than what you can prove. It does not wait for 56 days. It does not wait for a decision on the main duty. It does not require you to have completed any process. It bites on the day you approach. How to get it. Go to the borough’s housing options or homelessness service in person and say you are homeless today. Say what makes you or someone with you vulnerable — children, pregnancy, illness, disability, having been in care, fleeing violence, leaving prison or hospital. Ask specifically for interim accommodation under the duty, using those words. What to do if you are turned away. Ask for the refusal in writing and for the name of the person giving it. Most failures here never become decisions at all — someone is told to come back tomorrow, or to try another borough, and nothing is recorded. An informal brush-off cannot be challenged; a decision can. One limit to know: the suitability of interim accommodation, unlike most decisions, can only be challenged by judicial review rather than by the ordinary review route — so take advice quickly if what you are given is unusable.

It can place you outside its own borough, but not for the reason it usually gives, and not without weighing things it often does not. The council must secure accommodation within its own district so far as reasonably practicable. Where that is not possible it must place you as close as possible to where you previously lived. In deciding suitability it must consider the disruption to employment, caring responsibilities and education, the proximity and accessibility of medical facilities and current support, the proximity of local services and transport, and the distance from the placing authority. A blanket policy of placing people out of borough because there is a shortage is unlawful. That is Supreme Court authority: a general shortage of accommodation cannot justify an unsuitable placement, and councils must have transparent policies distinguishing local, proximate and distant placements. The scale is worth knowing, because it tells you how normal this has become. At the end of December 2025 there were 43,040 households placed out of area across England, and 82.3% of them came from London authorities. In London, placements in a different borough rose by roughly 10,000 households in two years. So expect it, and prepare for it rather than being surprised. Put in writing, at the time, exactly what a distant placement would do to work, school, caring and medical care — that is precisely what the suitability test weighs, and it is very hard to reconstruct convincingly months later. The limit: suitability of interim accommodation can only be challenged by judicial review.

Yes. Six weeks, and it is broken constantly. Where you are pregnant, living with a pregnant woman, or living with dependent children, bed and breakfast accommodation is unsuitable except where no other accommodation is available and the stay does not exceed six weeks in total. Know the definition, because it is narrower than the words suggest. “Bed and breakfast accommodation” means premises that are not separate and self-contained and where at least one of a toilet, washing facilities or cooking facilities is shared with another household. Accommodation managed by a local housing authority, a registered social landlord or a voluntary organisation is excluded from the definition — which is why some placements that feel like a bed and breakfast do not legally count as one. How common is the breach? The government’s own national plan records 2,070 families unlawfully in bed and breakfast beyond the six-week limit at 30 June 2025, and eliminating that is one of its stated targets for this Parliament. What to do if you are past six weeks. Say so in writing, to the housing options team, citing the six-week limit and the date you arrived. Ask for a written response. Then get advice quickly — Shelter and Citizens Advice are free, and this is one of the clearest and most winnable points in the whole system because it turns on a date rather than on a judgement about your circumstances.

Less than most advice suggests, and one scheme in particular is routinely recommended when it has been closed for years. Housing Moves, the pan-London scheme, has been closed to most applicants since 1 July 2022. It now accepts only current social tenants who are victims or survivors of domestic abuse, and former rough sleepers moving on from supported accommodation — and it is referral only, with no direct applications and a named support worker as the contact. Rent arrears, anti-social behaviour history or ongoing possession proceedings exclude you. Mutual exchange is real but only helps people who are already social tenants — it is a swap between two existing tenancies, not a way in. If you are considering leaving London altogether, understand what you are giving up. Local connection arises from normal residence of your own choice, current employment, family associations or special circumstances, and the standard measure of residence is six months in the last twelve, or three years in the last five. You can apply to any council, but without a local connection there you may be referred back — and connection is assessed at the date of the decision, not the date you applied. Some groups keep protection: care leavers have an automatic connection to the authority that owed them duties until 21; someone fleeing domestic abuse can establish residence in a new area by choosing it, including through a refuge; armed forces and former asylum seekers have their own routes. Take advice before moving, because the connection you lose is usually worth more than the rent you save.

It can be the right answer, and you should take it knowing exactly what you are giving up, because it is a great deal. If you live in your landlord’s home and share a kitchen, bathroom or living room with them or their family, you are an excluded occupier, not a tenant. That means: you can be evicted without a court order once notice expires, and while the eviction must be peaceable, changing the locks while you are out is lawful; your deposit does not have to be protected in a scheme, so recovering it means a court claim; and on a rolling agreement the rent can be increased at any time. If you do not share living space with the landlord — a self-contained annexe, say — you have “basic protection” instead, and a court order is required. The distinction turns on sharing, not on what the agreement is called. Why it can still be right: it is often the only thing available at the shared accommodation rate, it usually needs no guarantor and no referencing, and a settled twelve months of payment history is itself the reference you may currently lack. Two honest gaps. If you are considering being the resident landlord instead, Rent a Room covers tenants as well as owner occupiers — £7,500 a year, halved to £3,750 where more than one person receives income from the property — but it is a tax relief only, and we could not confirm from an official source how lodger income is treated for Universal Credit, or whether a lodger can claim the housing element. Check both before relying on either.

The Crisis and Resilience Fund, and the change caught a lot of advice out. Discretionary Housing Payments ended in England on 31 March 2026 and were replaced from 1 April by the housing strand of the Crisis and Resilience Fund, administered by your borough. It can cover rent in advance, a deposit and other lump-sum costs as well as ongoing rent, and it is a grant rather than a loan. You need to be receiving Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit, and it is not available if you have no recourse to public funds. Some councils still use the old name, so search for both. Then ask about the borough’s own scheme. Most run some combination of a deposit or bond guarantee, a rent in advance loan, an incentive payment to the landlord, or a social lettings agency. Access is normally gated behind an assessment by the housing options team and an accepted homelessness duty — which is why the homelessness route is usually the way into the money rather than a separate thing to try. The sequencing trap costs people the entire amount. The help is generally paid direct to the landlord, and at least one London borough states plainly that it cannot reimburse what you have already paid yourself. Get the agreement first and sign second. Also worth a look: the Crisis Help to Rent database lists schemes nationally — though it is aimed at practitioners, some entries take referrals only, and Crisis itself says it may not be complete or current. Capital Letters, the pan-London scheme, closed at the end of 2025 and we could not confirm that anything replaced it.

Some of it is being funded and none of it has arrived, and we would rather set that out than end on a hopeful note that does not survive contact with next month. What has been committed. A national plan published in December 2025 sets targets for this Parliament: ending unlawful bed and breakfast use for families beyond six weeks, halving long-term rough sleeping, and preventing discharge from hospitals, prisons and care into homelessness. It carries £3.5bn over three years for homelessness services and £39bn for social and affordable housing nationally, with the Mayor securing up to £11.7bn for London over 2026–36 and at least 60% of it expected to be social rent. Social rent convergence was reintroduced in January 2026. What that means for someone looking this month: nothing. Bidding for the London programme opened in February 2026 and closes in April, with starts on site by March 2036 and completions by March 2039. The overall homes target has not yet been confirmed. And the pressure is still rising. There were 134,210 households in temporary accommodation across England at the end of December 2025, up 5% in a year, including 176,130 dependent children. In London it was 74,860 households, up 22% in two years — 21.1 households per thousand people, against 2.8 per thousand across the rest of England. In Newham it is 59 per thousand. So plan for the system as it is. Use the duties, join the register, get the benefits check done, and run every route at once — because the thing that changes your position this year is a deadline you did not miss, not a programme that completes in 2039.