The right to succeed was introduced by the Housing Act 1980. It has been amended since by the Housing Act 1985 and the Localism Act 2011. How we deal with cases is also influenced by our own Housing Policy and our Tenure Policy.
Succession can be complex and the legal position is sometimes surprising so it can be helpful to refer to the full guidance note when dealing with a case. The succession flowchart summaries the things you need to establish before you can decide whether a succession has taken place.
Because succession depends on the law and formal council policy agreed by Councillors this guidance is necessarily prescriptive in parts.
The guidance deals with both statutory successions (where someone has a statutory right to succeed according to the law) and also situations where the Council can grant a tenancy to someone who can't succeed. You can read the full guidance covering both here
Succession is the transfer of a tenancy to someone else when a tenant dies. Housing law defines when this happens so the Council's role is mainly to determine whether a succession has taken place, and if so, who to.
In some situations Council policy also allows for an offer of a tenancy to be made to someone who lived with a tenant who died when there is no legal right to succeed. This is sometimes called a "non-statutory" succession
