Think tank

Do I have a foot in the door?

I used to have a secured tenancy, but my front door was coming away from its frame. As a result, when I went into hospital to have my son in 1989 an intruder broke in, stole various items and set the place on fire.

The council compensated me, but in the meantime I was left homeless and when I left hospital I had to live with my sister for eight months before being rehoused. The council offered me nothing; my solicitor wrote on my behalf to housing associations. I have been living in my present home for nearly 14 years and would like to buy it. But I was not told when I took the property that I would be losing my right to buy. Is there any way I can challenge this?

The missing piece of the jigsaw is how your original tenancy came to an end. If you surrendered it voluntarily because you were offered an assured tenancy of a different property, you may have a claim on the basis that you only gave it up on the understanding that the new tenancy would come with the right to buy. But if you became homeless and were housed as a result of the council’s statutory homeless obligations, the council would be entitled to discharge its duty by nominating you to a housing association place without the right to buy.

You could try complaining to the local authority, the local authority ombudsman or the first housing association who housed you when you were made homeless through their complaints process. But it all happened a very long time ago so it will be very difficult to prove what was said and I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

You could ask your current landlord if it ever sells properties voluntarily – some registered social landlords do. Or if you’re in an area of low demand you could seek a transfer to a council property where you’d have the right to buy and the years as an RSL tenant counted towards the discount. CH

If you have lost your right to buy, you could look into local low-cost homeownership schemes. They include: new-build shared ownership; shared ownership resales (buy a share and rent a share of an existing shared-ownership property being sold on by its current shared owner); and homebuy (buy a share of a property – the remainder is owned by an RSL on an equity loan that you can buy later or repay when you sell in the future).

Get advice on your eligibility for these from your RSL or local council. And if you’re a keyworker you may be eligible for other such schemes – your “zone agent”, or RSL marketing them, will know. NM

The inheritors

If a joint tenancy has been created and one tenant dies but the other continues the tenancy through succession, are they liable for arrears accrued from the beginning of the tenancy?

Also, where a tenant succeeds or assigns to a single tenancy held by a former partner, is the new tenant only liable for rent due from the succession/assignment date and not any arrears accrued during the former tenancy period? If in these circumstances the original tenant had a suspended possession order for rent arrears, would that order be cancelled?

Where one of two joint tenants dies, the remaining tenant becomes a sole tenant by “survivorship”, not “succession”. Because joint tenants are jointly liable for arrears, they will be liable for arrears still owing.

If a tenant takes an assignment, the deed should make it clear who is responsible for arrears owing. If the deed is silent then the new tenant (the assignee) takes the tenancy free of existing rent arrears.

A suspended possession order will bind any successor or assignee. This means that although a successor/assignee starts with a clean slate in terms of rent arrears owing before the succession/assignment, in practice, if there is an existing suspended possession order on grounds of rent arrears, the assignee/successor will be obliged to keep to the terms of the order or potentially lose their home.