Question about Council Tenancy

seven-day-weekend

Is it still possible for a person who lives with their mother in a Council house to have their name added to the tenancy?

Both mother and daughter have health problems. Mother is late forties, daughter is 20.

Diamond78

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Is it still possible for a person who lives with their mother in a Council house to have their name added to the tenancy?

Both mother and daughter have health problems. Mother is late forties, daughter is 20.

Im not sure as councils for some reason have different rules ect but I dont see it being a problem. But to be honest as the mother is the main named person on the tenancy, there is no need for the daughters name to be on the tenancy, im not 100% sure but think that having someone else on the tanacy is just for couples but then I could be wrong. Best bet is to ring the tenancy department of the council.

lynn.roberts

I dont see why not I knew someone who put her partners name on it before they got married so I dont see why mother and daughter cant do the same....you could argue that you are living together and you each contribute equally to bills and therefor equally responsable....If they say no then insist that you are put on the list as a matter of urgancy and point out that the mother will not be moving out but you infact will be taking a property which could be used by someone else! which is bad economics

Chunters_a_lot

This is how my council would decide.

Has the daughter lived there for over 12 months and can prove it with stuff like council tax bills, bank statements, utility bills?

Has there been a sucession on the tenancy before? That is has the mother been a joint tenant with some one else before or did she suceed to the tenancy after the death of a relative who was the tenant - if she has then she would not be able to create a joint tenancy with someone else.

Not 100% sure about this bit but would be worth asking about - if a joint tenancy were to be created between mother and daughter then essentially the rent would be halved. That is if one of them were entitled to Housing Benefit the benefit would only cover half the rent and the other half would be paid by the one not entitled to HB. This does not happen when a tenancy is joint between a couple.

As someone has said councils do look at these circumstances differently (why and how I have no idea because the rights to assign or succeed a tenancy are a matter of Law not policy!) so your best option is to speak to the Housing Officer.

seven-day-weekend

Thanks all for your replies.

lynn.roberts, I'm not enquiring for me, it's for some people I know, but thanks anyway.

It will be a matter of future succession - seems it may be possible and they will explore further.

Thanks all for your help.

squinty

Hi

Although Chunters is right with the process, its a bit more complicated in law.

Assuming that mother is a secure tenant. A secure tenant cannot usually be assigned other than in certain circumstances that are laid out in Law. The onlly one that may apply in this case is 'to someone who would be entitled to succeed to the tenancy'. (ie a family member who has lived as part of the household for at least 12 months)

However, there can only be one succession per tenancy, so if the mother succeeded to the tenancy either as a succession (ie when parents died) of survivorship (previous joint tenant dies) there can be no further succession - and hence no assignment.

This get more complicated when looking at adapted properties, or sheltered housing.

Another issue however is mother. As a sole tenant she has certain rights which she can control. If she becomes a joint tenant she loses some of this control - for example both tenants are jointly and severably responsible for all aspects of the tenancy, including rent. The main concern for mother however, would be that if she and daughter fall out, and daughter ends the tenancy she would be ending the tenancy on behalf of all joint tenants. (ie mother may lose her home)

As other have suggested, tenancy law is complicated and emotive, perhaps the best advice is to talk to the council to se what the options are.

Strapped

Squinty has it spot on.

Just to add though, if they were to move to another council property then I believe that they could do so as joint tenants - my great-aunt did this with her son after her husband died. (The son still lived at home and she gave up their family-sized house to move to a 2 bed flat, which gave the son succession when his mother later passed away).

seven-day-weekend

Some more good advice, thanks.