Setting Property Eligbility

Setting eligibility matching criteria can either be done before or after the bidding cycle.

There are 3 ways that bidding / shortlist order are controlled.

1. Bidding eligibility rules – these stop applicants from being able to bid on adverts they are not eligible for
2. Shortlist priority rules – these control the order of the shortlists based on property / applicant elements
3. Shortlist filtering – this is done manually by staff on the shortlist after bidding has closed, and it allows staff to filter out applicants based on the member’s elements

Most schemes if filtering shortlists tend to use it for priorities, which they should state in the free text of the advert.

Ie: priority to transfers or homeseekers / homeless/ in employment and if they are using the age criteria use the calculated element ‘age of the youngest household member’ = 55+

If you match after bidding, you have a wider range of bids to select from by here using Shortlist Filtering. 

This may be beneficial for example if you have a property that is for 60+ and has been advertised with that label on it. Age is generally an advisory icon; that means that any aged applicant can bid for the property. After bidding has closed, you can apply the age as a mandatory match and make the under 60s ineligible. If nobody suitable over 60 had bid, you could then filter again using the 55+ age bracket to find somebody suitable. If the 60+ icon had been mandatory before bidding opened, this group would have been unable to bid. Some of the icons on the advert are advisory information only and will not prevent members from bidding. Examples of this would be the age icon, the mobility icon and sheltered. You can sort these shortlists according to these criteria.

However, each scheme is set up according to its own policy and eligibility rules should be checked locally. For example, in some schemes, only those assessed for sheltered can bid for sheltered properties and in other schemes, only those transfer tenants of a particular landlord can bid for transfer properties. In other schemes, you can match by connection to a particular village or parish.

Please note: These facilities will only be available to users with a suitable security level. However, if they are set they will control the behaviour of shortlists for the property.

Summary

This matching process is generally used against the mobility, age and sheltered elements. You need to be aware of your data when using these elements. Although every household has an age band held against them as this is automatically generated, you need to consider whether your members have all been assessed for mobility or sheltered before you use these search criteria. For all matching to work, the property needs to be set correctly, and the correct data needs to be help against the member.