skip to main content
Text size:

Successions

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. 

Successions

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

Granting a new tenancy to someone who can't succeed

In some situations council policy allows the grant of a new tenancy to be considered for someone who lived with a tenant who isn't eligible to succeed. This includes:

  • Someone who would be eligible to succeed if there hadn't already been a succession.
  • A carer entitled to considered under the Council's carer's policy (set out in the full guidance).

If a new tenancy is granted under this policy it is an allocation under the Council's allocations scheme and so if the home the applicant lived in is under occupied they would be expected to downsize unless a case can be made to the Head of Housing Needs for an "exception" (see exceptions form here). 

For tenancies beginning after 1 October 2007 an applicant needs to have been living with the tenant for five years to be eligible. For tenancies beginning before that it's a year.

Last updated: 27 April 2023