Staff tenancies

Mr Godsmark worked for the council at a residential special school. His 1992 employment contract required him to live on site so that he could better perform his duties, particularly to sleep in at the school on a rota and in emergencies. These terms meant he was not a secure tenant because of a special exception in the Housing Act.

In 1993 he moved to another property on the site and in 1995 to another. In 2003 the council passed management of the school to a trust and Godsmark became the trust’s employee.

But the council did not immediately transfer legal title of the site so it remained Godsmark’s landlord.

He claimed he had become a secure tenant with the right to buy because the exception from security fell away either when he moved from the first property or when he ceased to be employed by the council. A judge rejected his claim and he appealed.

The appeal judge dismissed the appeal, deciding the moves from property to property had been, by implication, a variation of the contract to substitute the new address for the old and so the requirement to occupy still applied. When the school was transferred from council to trust, his employment in the following four months (up to the date of his legal claim) was still referable to his employment and so the exemption continued.