Succession rights in the United Kingdom (housing law)

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Succession rights concern the ability of tenants to pass on a tenancy when they die Councilhousing01.jpg
Succession rights concern the ability of tenants to pass on a tenancy when they die

Succession rights in the United Kingdom is an area of housing law concerning the ability to pass on their tenancy when they die something known as a succession. [1]

Contents

Council properties

A council house can only have one succession unless a tenancy document grants more. [2] If an inherited council house is too large for an individual's needs, then a tenant can also be evicted for under-occupation, although the council would have to provide suitable alternative accommodation. [2] The right of succession was granted by the Housing Act 1985. [3] The Localism Act 2011 amended the succession rights of tenancies created after this date and limits them to the spouse or partner of the deceased. [4]

Housing association properties

If you are a housing association tenant, then the right to a succession depends upon whether you are an assured tenant, assured shorthold tenant or a secure tenant. [5]

Housing and Planning Bill

The Housing and Planning Bill proposes that secure council tenancies will be replaced by tenancies lasting between two and five years. Under the proposals family members will not inherit a lifetime tenancy.

See also

Related Research Articles

In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". The person who will take over the rights upon death is said to have a "remainder" interest and is known as a "remainderman".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Landlord</span> Owner of a rented building, land or real estate

A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant. When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner. The term landlady may be used for the female owners. The manager of a pub in the United Kingdom, strictly speaking a licensed victualler, is referred to as the landlord/landlady. In political economy it refers to the owner of natural resources alone from which an economic rent, a form of passive income, is the income received.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lease</span> Contractual agreement in which an assets owner lets someone else use it in exchange for payment

A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user to pay the owner for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment are also leased. In essence, a lease agreement is a contract between two parties: the lessor and the lessee. The lessor is the legal owner of the asset, while the lessee obtains the right to use the asset in return for regular rental payments. The lessee also agrees to abide by various conditions regarding their use of the property or equipment. For example, a person leasing a car may agree to the condition that the car will only be used for personal use.

A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.

The Right to Buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland since 1 August 2016 and Wales from 26 January 2019, which gives secure tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a large discount, the council house they are living in. There is also a Right to Acquire for assured tenants of housing association dwellings built with public subsidy after 1997, at a smaller discount. By 1997, over 1,700,000 dwellings in the UK had been sold under the scheme since its introduction in 1980, with the scheme being cited as one of the major factors in the drastic reduction in the amount of social housing in the UK, which has fallen from nearly 6.5 million units in 1979 to roughly 2 million units in 2017, while also being credited as the main driver of the 15% rise in home ownership, which rose from 55% of householders in 1979 to a peak of 71% in 2003; this figure has declined in England since the late 2000s to 63% in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Housing Act 1980</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Housing Act 1980 was an act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that gave five million council house tenants in England and Wales the Right to Buy their house from their local authority. The Act came into force on 3 October 1980 and is seen as a defining policy of Thatcherism. In Scotland the Right to Buy was provided by the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act 1980 and for Northern Ireland it was left to the Housing Executive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House in multiple occupation</span> British term for shared residential properties

A house in multiple occupation (HMO), or a house of multiple occupancy, is a British English term which refers to residential properties where 'common areas' exist and are shared by more than one household.

The assured shorthold tenancy (AST) is the default legal category of residential tenancy in England and Wales. It is a form of assured tenancy with limited security of tenure, which was introduced by the Housing Act 1988 and saw an important default provision and a widening of its definition made by the Housing Act 1996. Since 28 February 1997 in respect of accommodation to new tenants who are new to their landlords, the assured shorthold tenancy has become the most common form of arrangement that involves a private residential landlord. The equivalent in Scotland is short assured tenancy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land reform in Scotland</span> Ongoing political and legal process in Scotland

Land reform in Scotland is the ongoing process by which the ownership of land, its distribution and the law which governs it is modified, reformed and modernised by property and regulatory law.

Under the provisions of the United Kingdom Housing Act 2004 every landlord or letting agent that takes a deposit for an assured shorthold tenancy in England and Wales must protect the deposit under an authorised tenancy deposit scheme. The regulations came into effect on 6 April 2007, and were amended by the Localism Act 2011 and the Deregulation Act 2015. Most recently the Tenant Fees Act 2019 provided further protections for tenants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assured tenancy</span> Type of housing tenancy in the United Kingdom

An assured tenancy is a legal category of residential tenancy to an individual in English land law. Statute affords a tenant under an assured tenancy a degree of security of tenure. A tenant under an assured tenancy may not be evicted without a reasonable ground in the Housing Act 1988 and, where periodic changes in rent are potentially subject to a challenge before a rent assessment committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Landlord and Tenant Act 1985</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is a UK act of Parliament on English land law. It sets minimum standards in tenants' rights against their landlords.

<i>Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust</i>

Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust[1999] UKHL 26 is an English land law case that examined the rights of a 'tenant' in a situation where the 'landlord', a charitable housing association had no authority to grant a tenancy, but in which the 'tenant' sought to enforce the duty to repair on the association implied under landlord and tenant statutes. The effect of the case is to create the relationship of de facto landlord and tenant between the parties.

The history of rent control in England and Wales is a part of English land law concerning the development of rent regulation in England and Wales. Controlling the prices that landlords could make their tenants pay formed the main element of rent regulation, and was in place from 1915 until its abolition by the Housing Act 1988.

In England and Wales, a section 21 notice, also known as a section 21 notice of possession or a section 21 eviction, is a notice under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, that a landlord must give to their tenant to begin the process to take possession of a property let on an assured shorthold tenancy without providing a reason for wishing to take possession. The expiry of a section 21 notice does not bring a tenancy to its end. The tenancy would only be ended by a landlord obtaining an order for possession from a court, and then having that order executed by a County Court bailiff or High Court enforcement officer. Such an order for possession may not be made to take effect earlier than six months from the beginning of the first tenancy unless the tenancy is a demoted assured shorthold tenancy. If the court is satisfied that a landlord is entitled to possession, it must make an order for possession, for a date no later than 14 days after the making of the order unless exceptional hardship would be caused to the tenant in which case possession may be postponed to a date no later than six weeks after the making of the order. The court has no power to grant any adjournment or stay of execution from enforcement unless the tenant has a disability discrimination, public law or human rights defence, or the case is pending an appeal.

The bedroom tax is a United Kingdom welfare policy whereby tenants living in public housing with rooms deemed "spare" experience a reduction in Housing Benefit, resulting in them being obliged to fund this reduction from their incomes, move home, or face rent arrears and potential eviction by their landlord. The policy was introduced as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 passed during the Premiership of David Cameron. Bedroom tax is the most commonly used term for the policy, especially by critics of the changes who argue that they amount to a tax because of the lack of social housing for affected tenants to downsize to. The bedroom tax is also referred to as the under-occupancy penalty, under occupation penalty, under-occupancy charge,under-occupation charge or size criteria.

A demoted tenancy is, in English law, a type of tenancy created by a court when a housing association get a demotion order from a court. It is typically created when an assured tenant or secure tenant engages in anti-social behaviour. The creation of the demoted tenancy is an alternative to eviction and makes a tenant easier to evict in the future. The Housing Act 1985 established demoted tenancy, and the Housing Act 1996 expanded on it.

A secure tenancy is a type of tenancy in the United Kingdom created by the Housing Act 1980. Most tenancies started before 15 January 1989 are likely to be secure. The secure tenancy was replaced on 15 January 1989 for new tenancies by an assured tenancy, with weaker protection, by the Housing Act 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Housing Act 1988</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Housing Act 1988 is an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It governs the law between landlords and tenants. The act introduced the concepts of assured tenancy and assured shorthold tenancy. It also facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations, which was then carried out partly through the system of Large Scale Voluntary Transfer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Housing and Planning Act 2016</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 is Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that makes widespread changes to housing policy and the planning system. It introduces legislation to allow the sale of higher value local authority homes, introduce starter homes and "Pay to Stay" and other measures intended to promote home ownership and boost levels of housebuilding. The Act has been subject to a number of criticisms by those opposed to the loss of social housing promoted, the extension of right-to-buy to housing associations and possible work disincentives under "Pay to Stay".

References

  1. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. 1 2 "Can you inherit a council tenancy? - Shelter England". England.shelter.org.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
  3. "Succession". Medway.gov.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
  4. Wilson, W. (2014) Succession Rights and Social Housing, House of Commons Research Paper, SN/SP/1998, p. 1
  5. "National Homelessness Advice Service | NHAS" (PDF).