Housing Allocations Policy

If you need another language or format, please email the Interpretation and Translation Service at its@edinburgh.gov.uk quoting reference 26-0564

EdIndex was launched in 2003 as a partnership between The Council and partner Registered Social Landlords to provide a single access point to social housing in Edinburgh. EdIndex operates a choice based letting system where applicants register their interest in an available home by placing a bid. Available homes are advertised each week on Key to Choice and applicants can place up to three bids per week. Applicants who are assessed as being in a priority category are awarded additional points to help them move quicker.

In most cases, the applicant with the most points is contacted and offered the home. If there are safety issues i.e. the applicant would be at risk of domestic abuse, or the home is not suitable for the households needs, the home may not be offered to the household with the most waiting time, and the next household with the highest points would be offered the home, and so on.

There are currently 20,912 homes owned by CEC and 21,451 RSL homes in the city.

There are currently over 31,000 applicants registered on EdIndex

In November 2023, the City of Edinburgh Council declared a housing emergency in response to significant pressures on the city’s housing market, demand for homelessness and housing costs. At that time, there were around 7,000 homeless households in Edinburgh, with 5,000 households residing in temporary accommodation. In response, an action plan was developed to address the emergency.

The review of the Letting Policy is one of the actions. 

In June 2025, Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee approved the Local Housing Strategy 2025-30. The strategic vision of the LHS is:

Everyone in Edinburgh can access and live in a home that is warm, safe, high quality, meets their needs and that they can afford. Everyone can access the right support, at the right time, to allow them to be part of a thriving community.

The Council’s LHS, HEAP and Business Plan all contain essential actions for the Council and partners to take measures to prevent and resolve homelessness as quickly as possible.

The majority of applicants on EdIndex do not have any priority award and have accrued points solely on waiting time.

Housing legislation requires the following groups must be offered priority:

• Households who are homeless, or threatened with homelessness;
• Households who are living in unsatisfactory housing conditions and who have unmet housing needs, and;
• Tenants of social landlords who are under occupying their homes.

Most people can apply for social housing. The only groups who cannot apply for social housing are:

• Anyone under the age of 16, and;
• Those subject to immigration control who have restrictions on accessing council housing (however, all RSLs are not subject to excluding granting tenancies to those subject to immigration control)

When considering allocating a property, landlords cannot take into account the following factors:

• Income;
• Length of time in an area;
• Enforcing that an applicant is registered on the housing list for a set period of time before becoming eligible for an offer, and;
• Conditions around outstanding liabilities

Landlords should not take age into account, unless the main applicant is under 16 years of age, or the property being offered is specialist for older people and is inappropriate to offer to someone younger.

Landlords can also consider circumstances where an applicant owns their own property and what conditions apply where it is justified that they can retain their owner occupied home.

Choice based systems in Scotland

When an application for housing is received, the landlord will assess it to see if it meets the criteria for awarding a priority. A priority will assist the applicant in achieving a move quicker. Applicants can only be in one priority category.

Empty homes are usually advertised online, but could be advertised in other outlets, e.g., newspapers. Adverts are usually live for one week only. Applicants register their interest in an empty home by placing a bid.

Applicants can place bids on any home they consider meets their households needs.

Once the adverts for the empty homes are closed, the applicants who have placed bids for the home are ranked by their priority and number of points they have. The applicant at the top of the list is the one with the highest priority and most points.

Needs based systems in Scotland

Each application is assessed and points are awarded for all priority categories where the criteria is met for example, an applicant could have 20 points for homelessness and 15 points for medical needs.

Each priority category may also award different number of points depending on the level of need for example, a landlord could award five points for being overcrowded by one bedroom but 10 points for being overcrowded by two bedrooms.

Applicants may be placed into bands which will be ranked based on priority need.

Homes are not advertised anywhere. The landlord will decide which band the home will be allocated to.

The landlord will contact the applicant with the highest number of points in the selected band to offer then the home.

Often, the landlord will have targets to allocate certain percentages to each band.

The table below provides some information about some terms relating to allocations policies, and examples from the Council’s current Lettings Policy.