Evictions: Shared Housing

(asked on 18th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support and regulations he has put in place nationwide to protect and rehouse relatives who have been sharing accommodation but then become ineligible for that size property when a resident family member passes away; and if he will take steps to assess the effectiveness of legislation on evicting remaining resident family members to ensure that they do not become homeless.


Answered by
Christopher Pincher Portrait
Christopher Pincher
This question was answered on 27th November 2020

The Localism Act 2011 has made changes to the rules on succession to social tenancies. From April 2012, rather than being limited by law to providing only one statutory succession, social landlords are able to give to new tenants whatever additional succession rights they deem to be appropriate in the tenancy agreement. This means that, for example, adult children who have lived in a property for many years can be provided with the assurance of a right to succeed to the tenancy regardless of whether a previous succession has already taken place.

In addition social landlords are able to grant, to those who remain in the home after the death of the tenant but have no succession rights, a new tenancy on the same or another more suitable property, provided that is in line with their own policies for allocating tenancies.

On 18 November I wrote to all local housing authorities to encourage them to consider how they can make best use of these existing flexibilities and to ask them to provide examples of good practice so that these can be shared more widely.

In addition, where family members other than a spouse or partner have a statutory right to succeed to a local authority tenancy, the landlord may seek to evict them if the property is or will become under-occupied. However, the landlord must ensure that suitable alternative accommodation is made available.

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