Home buy case management overview
All housing organisations that receive applications from tenants wishing to purchase their rented home, either in full or in part, can manage the end-to-end process through the creation of a home buy case file. A new home buy case can be generated directly from within an individual contact record, or via a contact group stored on the system, of which the applying tenant is a member. The case file represents the single point of reference for all activities that must be actioned in order to progress a home buy application through to a satisfactory outcome, and in line with government directives. All case file activities are managed most effectively through the creation of discrete stages, providing a logical workflow and controlled timeline for the completion of all related and interdependent tasks. In defining the most proactive case file structure, there are a number of high-level stages that should be considered:
Within these overarching stages, the inherent activities can be managed via a series of mandatory or optional tasks; for larger stages, these can be broken down further into chronological sub-stages and linked to the same master stage. When defining all custom stages to be applied to newly-created case files, these are maintained separately for the three supported home buy types - Right to Buy, Right to Acquire and Social Home Buy - as well as the country in which the relevant properties are situated.
Increasingly, digital media files are incorporated within a home buy case to augment the activities that are relevant in processing an application. Within Civica Cx Housing these can be attached directly to the relevant case, and serve as a single point of reference for all related progression activities. Any number of file attachments can be linked, giving contextual background to a customer enquiry and, where applicable, supporting a formal offer or, say, highlighting potential property defects. Images and video clips that have been submitted or obtained in support of a customer interaction can all be stored, together with audio recordings of conversations and email correspondence. At the discretion of each case owner, there is also the opportunity to create a series of notes, providing an aide memoir on progress made and any future actions to take into account.
Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of home buy case management, including: