Properties wanted
Licensed houses, taken whole.
Taken on one long lease from the owner, empty, and let whole to one provider of supported accommodation for young people aged 16 and 17 who are leaving care. One lease, one tenant, one payment, paid whether the house is full or empty.
Who the accommodation is for
Young people aged 16 and 17 who are leaving care. Supported accommodation for that one group and nothing else. No other occupier group, no emergency placements, no bail or probation accommodation, no adult services.
A young person of 16 or 17 leaving the care of a local authority usually has no family home to go back to, and no rental history, no deposit and no guarantor, so the ordinary private rented market is closed to them. The local authority has a duty to accommodate them, and it does that by commissioning a provider registered with Ofsted to provide the accommodation together with the support that gets a young person to the point of living independently: budgeting, cooking, keeping appointments, getting into work or college.
What that provider cannot easily do is find and hold the buildings. That is the gap this company fills.
Where
These are the areas with live demand behind them today. The list moves as providers win and change contracts, so a house outside it is still worth sending, and anything inside it will get an answer the same day.
- South London
- West London
- Enfield
- Barking and Dagenham
- Runnymede, Spelthorne and Elmbridge
- Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire
- Coventry
- Leicester and Warwick
- Exeter and South Gloucestershire
- Bournemouth and Dorset
South London means Croydon, Lewisham, Catford, Downham, Mitcham, Sutton, Bromley, Wandsworth, Streatham and Surbiton. Exeter and South Gloucestershire means Exeter close to the city centre, and Filton and Kingswood on the Bristol fringe.
What the building needs
Already licensed as a house in multiple occupation, or licensed before, and empty or coming empty, so that the house takes at least five young people. Laid out like this.
- Five lettable bedrooms, or six with the one closest to the front door used as the staff room
- A kitchen big enough to take a dining table for everyone, or a separate dining room, and a living room as well as that
- A staff room by the front door. Not a bedroom, and used for private meetings and for staff staying over
- A WC on the ground floor, and better still a shower with it
- One bathroom for every three bedrooms
- A garden
- No bedsits. An en suite bedroom is fine, a bedroom with its own kitchen is not
Around Bristol and Exeter, add walking distance of a town centre and a bath rather than only a shower where bathrooms are shared. Some providers want every bedroom given to a young person and a second reception room instead of the staff bedroom, and those are sourced as readily.
The owners this tends to suit
Running rooms, and tired of it
Someone letting a shared house room by room who has had enough of the management, the arrears and the turnover.
A licence coming up for renewal
A landlord facing the fee, another inspection and another five years of running a shared house.
A licensed house just come empty
An owner between tenants who would rather have one long tenant than fill the rooms again one by one.
An agent with a landlord who wants out
Out of the running of it, rather than out of the asset. The agent keeps the relationship.
What the company is not
Prime Orchard Residential is not a registered provider of social housing, is not registered with Ofsted, and provides no care, no support and no supervision. It provides accommodation and housing management. Where a house is let to a supported accommodation provider, that provider stands as landlord to every occupier. The company takes no referral, matches no occupier, and has no occupier contact at all.
It does not let room by room. It does not take flats, bedsits, self contained units, bed and breakfast, or any building with a commercial element.
Send the address
Tell us where it is and what it does for you now. If it is not for us we will say so in a sentence. If you would rather not hear from us again, say so and you will not.