This is a study of encounters between social workers and citizens in one welfare organisation, the municipal old age care system. The article sheds light on how older persons’ claims are dealt with in the processing of applications for home care, and how their needs of care are assessed. Twenty encounters between social workers and older persons were studied using discourse analysis. The findings show how discursive practices are part of the routine when older people’s applications for old age care are processed. The application handling follows an agenda-bound pattern that is visible in the encounters. In these standardized procedures, oral discourse is embedded in routines that also include the use of texts. However, within this institutional order, there is also an important element of negotiation between the parties. It is therefore claimed that this type of institutional encounters include a negotiated order which does not exist on its own, but has to be continuously achieved in the ongoing interaction.