Schools and learning

Housing and Accommodation for Teachers

PRIVATE RENTAL ARRANGEMENTS www.teachinherts.com/accommodation
Many private landlords are positive about renting their properties to teachers and other teachers sometimes prefer another teacher to rent a room in their property. We have set up a service on our website to put together landlords and teachers and there are presently several hundred properties being offered for rent.

FRIENDS AND NEW COLLEAGUES
Perhaps there are staff in your own school who may be looking for someone to share a flat, or they may know of someone who has a room to let.

KEY WORKER HOUSING SCHEMES
Hertfordshire County Council is working in partnership with Aldwyck Housing Association to create an integrated housing scheme for keyworkers in the county. Aldwyck have set up a separate organisation to deal with this called Lea Valley Homes. The website address is www.leavalleyhomes.co.uk
The aim is to create a one-stop shop to deal with all keyworker housing schemes available in Hertfordshire.

The scheme involves three separate strands:

• Accommodation for rent: as a guide, rents in keyworker schemes are about 80% of the commercial rent. Some of this is new build, other developments are conversion of older properties.

• New Build HomeBuy means purchasing through a mortgage, part of the cost of a property and paying a nominal and heavily subsidised rent on the remaining portion. However choice of location and development is limited.

• Open Market HomeBuy offers the opportunity to purchase a home without restricting location. The buyer will need to find the full purchase price of the property but can be supported with a mortgage subsidy. The maximum amount of this is currently £50,000. Help with buying a house is only available to people already employed by HCC. Newly qualified teachers therefore must already be working in post before they are eligible to apply. This initiative is aimed at retaining keyworkers in Hertfordshire, so teachers who need to move to a larger home (eg because of increase in size of their family) may apply. There are priority weightings depending on role, specialist teaching subject etc and teachers must have a permanent contract to be eligible for this scheme.

For further help and advice click on the link on the right or contact Moira Milne at Lea Valley Homes on 01582 869441.