Thread: Housing Allocations

What happens if you turn down your quarter offer?

It is a fact of life in the Army that no two married quarters are ever the same. This is fine if you find yourself moving from a smaller, shabbier house to a bigger, smarter one, but not when it’s the other way around. When this happens moving house on posting takes on a whole new level of stress.

So what happens if, having received your quarter offer, you’ve popped round to view your new home and, horror of horrors, you realise that its too small for your furniture, has no garden, overlooks a major main road and is miles away from the unit and you only have one car between you? Naturally your first instinct will be to reject the quarter and await another offer in the hope that it will be something better (or maybe even somewhere that you actually requested on the 1132 application!). It is at this point that you should stop and think seriously about the consequences of rejecting the quarter offer. Unfortunately, it is another fact of life that there is an increasing shortage of married quarters in many areas in the UK. Therefore, if you decide to turn down your first offer for personal reasons you will automatically go to the bottom of the housing waiting list (having also lost your eligibility to a private hiring). In areas where quarters are still plentiful, you should receive a second offer fairly quickly but, if you happen to be applying to an area that is short of quarters, you may spend weeks, even months, awaiting a second offer. The penalty for this decision may be that the serving member of the household will be required to go ahead and start the new job leaving the rest of the family behind. You may also find that you can only retain for 28 days at your previous location before the Housing Information Centre (HIC) serve you with a Notice to Vacate, thus leaving you stuck between the two locations with no quarter at all!

I should explain at this point that under the JSP 464 housing regulations, ‘personal reasons’ covers absolutely every conceivable reason you can possibly think of for refusing a quarter. Here are a few of the more common ones:
•Furniture doesn’t fit
•Lack of garden
•Too close to a main road
•No garage
•Too far away from unit
•Too far away from school and no transport
•Flat offered when house preferred
•Poor state of repair/decoration
•Bedrooms too small for children to share

The only permitted reason for refusing an offer, and not having to go to the bottom of a waiting list, being when the HIC makes an offer of SFA below entitlement. Not much room for manoeuvre there then.

Of course, as families, many of us have experienced the frustration of being told that there are no quarters in the area that we have requested to move to, only then to find out on arrival that there are several houses that have been empty for months awaiting repairs, or others occupied by families that are no longer stationed in the area. DIO Ops Accommodation, with the support of the chain of command, are working to ensure that families are occupying quarters only in their entitled locations, or that they have a legitimate reason for retaining a quarter in a previous location.

So before you reject that first SFA offer, give some serious thought to the possible consequences for your family. If you have already turned down one house and are considering rejecting a second offer, then you may find yourself struggling to obtain any quarter allocation at all as the JSP 464 housing regulations only require the HIC to make two offers of SFA.

If you wish to consult JSP 464 tri-Service Accommodation Regulations (TSARs) they can be found on the DIO website

Stickied. Cos it's good info!

You know, I have never thought about refusing a qtr. I think I only ever would if it was dangerous.

I considered it when we moved into this quarter. It was an absolute tip. Porridge stuck to the walls, filthy cooker (so bad they just skipped it and brought me a new one), cupboards still chocablock with packets of food, bathroom so filthy even the kids were revolted. HIC were prepared to do it but once you've arranged all the phone, broadband etc it doesn't seem worth the effort. I got the marigolds out and bitched like a demon for about 6 hours until the shipping turned up instead.

Just seen this on a facebook group!

We recently turned down a quarter for various reasons (work and personal) and were offered a new alloaction a few days later. Being extra nice to Aldershot HIC may have helped.

Guess it really depends on where you are posted too and what is available at the time. I know some people who have turned down quarters for ridiculous reasons. As bodger says, if the quarter is grim on move in your best bet is to bitch like a demon for hours and then crack on with the marigolds.

I personally would clean any new quarter from top to bottom as you dont know what grubby little people occupied it before you!

Originally Posted by bodger

I considered it when we moved into this quarter. It was an absolute tip. Porridge stuck to the walls, filthy cooker (so bad they just skipped it and brought me a new one), cupboards still chocablock with packets of food, bathroom so filthy even the kids were revolted. HIC were prepared to do it but once you've arranged all the phone, broadband etc it doesn't seem worth the effort. I got the marigolds out and bitched like a demon for about 6 hours until the shipping turned up instead.

how on EARTH can anyone give back an SFA in that state anyway?? they are always so bloody picky when we move out of anywhere...

Originally Posted by NCSHEA

how on EARTH can anyone give back an SFA in that state anyway?? they are always so bloody picky when we move out of anywhere...

That's the joys of the pre-paid march out. The previous occupant handed over the cash for the clean and SERCO or whoever else's job it is to arrange the cleaners, trousered it and just left us to it.

Originally Posted by bodger

That's the joys of the pre-paid march out. The previous occupant handed over the cash for the clean and SERCO or whoever else's job it is to arrange the cleaners, trousered it and just left us to it.

I didn't know you could do that! we paid £250 to get ours properly cleaned but they still fined us afterwards for stuff on the cooker and limescale on the shower!

i have never cleaned myself, always paid for it to be done. the place always has to be hoovered, clean sink and toilets. di you put in a complaint?

Not all SFA are handled by DE (or whatever they're calling themselves this week) so what standards you have to leave a property for the pre-paid clean varies. This particular one had a sliding costs scale. Obviously the previous tenants had opted for the full blown number.

Obviously I put in a complaint otherwise HIC wouldn't have agreed to me refusing it and re-allocating the same day!

sandra - that shouldn't have happened if you used a cleaner who was DE recommended and do 'guaranteed march-out' standard cleans. They should have been brought back to do the job properly.

It was definitely DE recommended as he got the leaflet off the notice board at work and there were flyers round base! We were quite naive at the time, it was our first ever MQ and we didn't know then what we do now and as we were also having to fork out for one of the carpets in the bedroom after young son tried to iron it - don't ask!! we just paid up when the bill came through. We've learnt a lot over the years and we now list everything, and I mean everything, when we march in right down to dents in doors and peeling wallpaper and I can assure you that if this happened again, there is no way I would pay it without a fight first!

Originally Posted by bodger

Obviously I put in a complaint otherwise HIC wouldn't have agreed to me refusing it and re-allocating the same day!

but you said in the earlier post you didnt refuse it, only considered it.

i am confused.

Originally Posted by NCSHEA

but you said in the earlier post you didnt refuse it, only considered it.

i am confused.

OK, here you go. Chapter and verse for you.

Arrived at SFA from a 5 day travel from shores afar. Walked into property and discovered pig sty. Told woman we were not happy and were considering refusing. She goes away and finds another vacant property to move us into. Bodger thinks of all the dramatics in trying to put broadband and telephone lines in place from afar and decides against it.

Therefore, although I didn't sign the paperwork and scrawl 'refused' across it in blood, if I had taken the new property which was offered, the original property would have been refused.

Or you could look at it in another way. We refused it verbally, were offered another property and then changed our minds. Cos I can.

Less confused now?

I wouldn't even think of refusing a quarter. When we moved to this one we came from Germany so couldn't even get to look through the windows as to what we were getting. I didn't have a clue whether everything we had brought in Germany and fitted in our quarter there, would fit into this one.
Thats just the way you live when you're moving with the forces!!

Originally Posted by bodger

OK, here you go. Chapter and verse for you.

Arrived at SFA from a 5 day travel from shores afar. Walked into property and discovered pig sty. Told woman we were not happy and were considering refusing. She goes away and finds another vacant property to move us into. Bodger thinks of all the dramatics in trying to put broadband and telephone lines in place from afar and decides against it.

Therefore, although I didn't sign the paperwork and scrawl 'refused' across it in blood, if I had taken the new property which was offered, the original property would have been refused.

Or you could look at it in another way. We refused it verbally, were offered another property and then changed our minds. Cos I can.

Less confused now?

ok yes thanks. no need to be snappy. i guess the refusal paperwork would cause them hassle? i bet she was expecting trouble / complaints about it before you arrived if she had seen the state of it. why on earth did they bother offering you it? necky sods, just shows doesn't it, what they would try and get away with.

Hi...,
Nice sharing....I visit last time DIO website,but it have not enough information about JSP 464 tri-Service Accommodation Regulations (TSARs).If you know other website name related to it please send me.Thanks in advance