council tenancy transfer whilst in prison

Hi
I can’t answer your question re; transfer of tenancy however as your client’s rent arrears are very old my thoughts are that the Joseph case may be of assistance (attached). In short this was a decision that….. statute barred debts (over 6 yrs old) should not be used to prevent housing assistance. How long has it been since your client addressed these arrears?

Chaos

It sounds if the LA is probably challengable. The regs are 1996 Housing ACt Partvi/Homelessness Act 2002.The starting point is to find out what the LA is saying, ask them to put in writing. and then ask for a Review.

You need to be clear, are they excluding from their list altogether.

Or: are the LA saying that they are putting in a lower band. On the grounds of behaviour. (non payment rent)

Or: are they saying that she can bid/be allocated but…. they will contact at this point and if your client does not pay, the full ammount they will simply refuse allocation.

What is the level of arrears, is your client paying off a small regular ammount?

It sounds a bit tough to exclude on a debt from late 1990s. If the LASs position is blanket ban on rent arrears, its most likely challengeable, for this reason most LAs have “exceptions to policy” on former tenant debt…...... again you simply need to ask, what the exception to policy is.  If you are lucky ...The exception to policy doc…will mention something like, that debts prior to say 2005 are excluded, and you will be home and dry….... many LAs will try to negotiate on FT debt, as it means they will recover something…....

You also have the caselaw posted by CHAOS

You could simply request from the LA the tenancy record, my guess would be that your client was the tenant all the way through, but allowed another to occupy whilst in prison. But who knows?

Hope this helps.

Once a person has a residential tenancy in his name (whether solely or jointly it matters not) then there are formal (mostly statutory) procedures to bring it to an end.  One party is simply not free, arbitrarily, to transfer the title to another.  (Edit), I should have said the landlord has far more freedom in this area depending on the nature of his legal title.

One way is for the tenant can give statutory notice to quit.  This does not have to be in writing but can be effected by action, such as handing in the keys.  A maximum of four weeks rent is payable from the date the notice is given effect.

Alternatively, the landlord can go to court for possession. 

Or, the tenant can assign the tenancy to another.  However, there are certain formalities to go through to effect an assignment.  Once the tenancy is assigned the tenant is then freed from all the covenants in the agreement, including liability for rent.  However, there are exceptions to the freedom from the covenants rule.  Most notably where the tenant guarantees the immediate performance of the assignee.  But note, secure (council, in other words) tenancies are incapable of being assigned with three notable exceptions none of which seem to apply here.

Or, there is sub-letting.  In this situation the tenant still remains bound to the superior landlord while the sub-tenant remains bound to the tenant.

Or, the landlord and tenant can mutually decide to bring the tenancy to an end leaving the parties free to contract over again either with each other or with someone else.

Now because of the formalities required for all this it is likely that your client would be aware if any of the above had taken place and I would tend to agree with Magn8 that the LA probably allowed her partner to stay on informally. 

Your client should seek specialist housing advice.

http://www.nottinghamcityhomes.org.uk/documents/find_a_home/Allocations_policy_full_v3_1009.pdf

Notts allocation procedure. See section 3. There is no blanket ban on rent arrears cases. The wording says properties wil not normally be allocated….Which aint the same thing at all….....

Absolutely, because outwith statute, blanket policies are unlawful as a fetter on discretion.