Swapping your home

There are two ways of swapping your council owned property:

Transfers

To transfer your council owned property to another property you must apply for housing by completing an online self-assessment form. We will not normally allow tenants to transfer if there are rent arrears, if you have caused damage to your property or if you have breached any other conditions of your tenancy.

Mutual exchanges

A mutual exchange is a swap of properties between two social housing tenants where both parties move on the same day. You can be a tenant from the Lewes district or Eastbourne Homes, another council or a Housing Association. Although landlords on both sides need to agree to the swap before you can go ahead. 

Exchanging your property is often a quicker option than transferring. This is because the move does not depend on a vacant property. It also gives some personal choice around the location of your new home.

How do I apply for a mutual exchange?

The easiest way to submit applications for you and all other parties is via SwapTracker, which can be accessed directly from your HomeSwapper account.

If you or your landlord don't have a HomeSwapper account, you can still apply via SwapTracker by emailing us your name and requesting a link to the online mutual exchange application form. A link will then be emailed to back to you where you can complete the online application form.

Once you have applied online, this creates a dashboard within which you can easily upload requested supporting documents as well as being able to see the status of your application in real time.

For those applicants who do not have online or email access, or the support of somebody who does, then we could process your application manually but you will not have access to live updates. Signing of documents may also take longer as these will have to be posted to all parties, whereas these can all be signed online via the SwapTracker dashboard.