Housing co-operatives are groups of people who live in and collectively manage their accommodation. This involves taking responsibility for arranging repairs, making decisions about rent and who joins or leaves the co-op. Living in a housing co-operative can be a good way to get affordable housing and may give you more control over where you live.

It can be difficult to get accommodation in a housing co-operative because this type of accommodation is quite rare and few vacancies come up. The way that vacancies are filled varies between different co-operatives. You could try:

• applying to the community landlord waiting list and asking to be nominated for vacancies in housing co-operatives
• contacting the council for information about local housing co-operatives and then contacting them directly
• you may be able to set up a housing co-operative yourself. You’ll probably need a certain number of other people to get involved as well as help with the legal aspects of setting it up.

The Confederation of Co-operative Housing (CCH) has some examples of schemes in Wales and may be able to help you.

What kind of agreement would I have in a housing co-operative?

If you live in a housing co-operatives you are probably an occupier with basic protection.  This means that you don’t have very strong protection from eviction, but can only be evicted by court order. However, you might have stronger rights if you have been living in a housing co-operative for a very long time, or if your agreement says that you can only be evicted for specific reasons. If a housing co-operative is trying to evict you, get help urgently.

We are sorry that we cannot provide this information in Welsh, however if you would like to speak to an adviser in Welsh please contact 08000 495 495.