Mutual exchange

If you're already a council or housing association tenant and you need to move, you might be able to find another tenant to swap homes with. This is known as a 'mutual exchange'. For many tenants who want to move to another area, or don't have high priority for a move on our transfer list, this can be an easy way to find a new home.

To find a suitable exchange, you can register with Home Swapper. Once your registration is approved, you can search for properties you'd like to move to.

Home Swapper holds information on people from all over the country who are looking to swap homes. This way of moving home can be more flexible than joining the council's transfer list as:

some landlords will allow you to move to somewhere a bit smaller or larger than you'd normally be offered through a transfer
you can move to another county or district through an exchange without having to have a connection to the area
it's quite common for several tenants to arrange exchanges involving three, four or even more properties - this can help where you can’t find a direct swap with one other tenant

Home Swapper is free to register for tenants of all social landlords within Luton.

If you see a property on the site which you're interested in, you can contact the other tenant directly and arrange to view each other’s homes. If you then want to go ahead, both you and the other tenant will need to contact your existing landlords to apply for permission to exchange. There will be some restrictions. For example, you'd be expected to have a clear rent account. Your housing officer can give you more information about any restrictions when you apply to exchange.