Friday, 25 May 2012

Succession and Assignment

Posted in: Need to Know | Ask the Experts

19/11/2010 2:06 pm

joanne71

joanne71

Posts: 5

Where a person has a legal right to succeed to a tenancy, am I right in thinking that a new tenancy is not created and that the succession is to the original tenancy from the original tenants commencement of tenancy date.

Also, when a tenancy is assigned by mutual exchange or to someone who would succeed, a new tenancy agreement is not needed as what is being assigned is the original tenancy.  The assignment is by deed?  Does the assignee take on the original tenants commencement of tenancy date.

I am asking this for right to buy discount purposes.

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

22/11/2010 1:33 pm

For right to buy the discount is calculated on the length of time the applicant has been a tenant. You do not acrue extra discount for dead relatives nor former occupants, that would just be greedy.

That is why the wiser RTB supporting brethren purchased their mothers Council house while mother was still alive, cashing in on her eligible discount but securing the profits for themselves - they just had to be patient and cry a bit at the funeral. Meanwhile, nobody cried for the never ending queue of people waiting for family sized housing for affordable rents trapped in private sector rented homes because of the pillage of social housing.

Now the vultures are picking over the bones of the carcass of social housing, yet still people are looking for what extra they can scrounge off of the system, whilst castigating those on housing benefit for being too poor to buy a house.

Apologies if you take this rant personally, but the gall of some people at a time when thousands face being thrown onto the streets beggars belief.

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joanne71

joanne71

Posts: 5

22/11/2010 1:57 pm

Right to Buy aside, does anyone have a view on the questions I asked?

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

22/11/2010 2:24 pm

'I am asking this for right to buy discount purposes'

and then you say right to buy aside?!?

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Anonymous

Anonymous

22/11/2010 2:35 pm

Answers: Q1: No. Q2: No

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joanne71

joanne71

Posts: 5

22/11/2010 2:37 pm

Can the anonymous post please explain their answers preferably with full legal authority if known?

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

22/11/2010 3:31 pm

Joanne - have a look back through this site and you will find the exact answers you are looking for - now off to the bank and solicitors with you so you can aid in the removal of another affordable home from the social sector.

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Sancho

Sancho

Posts: 199

22/11/2010 4:24 pm

PSR, don't be so rude.  This lady is asking for advice on how to exercise her legal right and I don't think it's in any way helpful to attack her for it.  Just because you don't like the fact that it exists, it is still her right and her liberty to exercise it. 

Hopefully, someone who knows the actual answer and doesn't have a boring axe to keep grinding over and over again will come along soon.

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

22/11/2010 5:49 pm

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JeanH

JeanH

Posts: 12

22/11/2010 10:17 pm

I completely agree with you PSR. And it now appears that under the new rules even those on fixed term tenancies will have the right to buy, so that really will be the end of social housing. Maggie must be having a chuckle, Dave is finishing off what she started!

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WATT WATT

WATT WATT

Posts: 12

23/11/2010 2:48 pm

Nobody’s knows Joanne’s full circumstances – she may be low income and just about able to scrape to a mortgage after a RTB discount – the way rents are going, mortgage might be cheaper.

If there is a dedicated effort to replace home for home re: each RTB sale (unlike Maggie’s time) then does that not help both Joanne and a rent waiting list tenant. Is that not cheaper to deliver than all this SO schemes currently remarketed to two earner middle incomes because can’t sell to original target?

Yes, there’s a diabolical shortage of social housing but at dire times, shouldn’t the Government and RSLs be looking at providing maximum for minimum outlay – how about giving Joanne 60k to move out, thus giving her a foot on ladder (I’m assuming she’s not a city broker), emptying her social home within weeks and getting someone off the rent waiting list. Her private purchase might even help those trying to sell their home. Surely better than the 1.7 bn PFI, 100 million landbank loss (2009) and 300k SO schemes – so much money over past decade – very little to show.

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

23/11/2010 4:19 pm

Watt Watt - I'm with you on this, and I'd suspect Joanne would be to (by the way, apologies Joanne, I have no axe with you particularly and its not your fault the government have made it possible for someone to succeed to their parents property and inherit their right to buy discount. I'm sure you just want a home, and the issue of denying others the access to the social home in the future, forever, is not the most pressing - honestly, good luck to you and do vote for others to have the opportunity of a social affordable home in future)

Why the Tories got rid of the transferable discount is obvious. People who buy private sector homes do not remove a social home from the public sector - this more than anything exposes their purpose through right to buy. There has never been a like for like rebuild, and it was barred under the legislation. Of course so much money has gone from the public purse with insufficient affordable housing as a result - but what you do not ask is where did that money go, even more private sector development and shareholder profit.

We have been bled dry by the Tories and the friends for decades. Blair did nothing to reverse this, he simply put his cup down with the rest of them.

Right to buy and the failure to rebuild (and Shapps little tweet to build as many houses in five years as were built in the previous two makes things worse) have been a deliberate market manipulation in favour of private profit, and a deliberate taxpayer rip off, channelling £bns into private pockets.

Meanwhile - Joanne, do take formal advice from a housing solicitor so that you are properly informed that the discount is inherited, that the tenancy rights do transfer, and thus you've just hit your very own little lottery win care of the government. You need to be sure about the status of your tenancy and the primacy of the succession - other than that there is a thing called cost floor which may effect you discount. (there you go, as you've suffered the views - which you did request - you may as well have the answers as well!)

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joanne71

joanne71

Posts: 5

24/11/2010 9:31 am

Thanks for all the replies, some of which were more helpful than others!!

I wasn't asking the question to benefit myself.  I'm lucky enough to have a decent income and own my own home.  I work in Housing and I want to ensure what we are doing as an organisation is within the realms of the law.

I grew up in council accommodation because my parents were on a low income.  They did buy their council house 15 years ago and are still alive enjoying it.  I very much believe in retaining social housing but also believe that in the current economic climate, RTB will be more attractive, particularly to adult children of existing tenants who wouldn't ordinarily be able to buy.

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

24/11/2010 10:05 am

No thanks needed - but do think through the contradictory action you are explaining: helping people who could not ordinarily buy take on a mortgage in extremily unsure economic times through Right to Buy acts against you belief in retaining social housing.

Either retain it or sell it, but remember in the case of the latter every person you help is at the expense of helping others forever, denying future generations of affordable housing choice just as the current generation has seen such choice so restricted because social housing was not retained.

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Eddie E

Eddie E

Posts: 8

24/11/2010 7:34 pm

Joanne

Going back to your original question you are right that no new tenancy is created by succession or by exchange (provided that the paperwork is done correctly) so in that respect the tenancy start date will be the date that the original tenancy started.

However PSR is right that for RTB discount purposes it is the individual's time as a tenant rather than the length of tenancy that counts. Obviously these will often be the same thing but not in the two cases you have asked about, or where the tenant has had other public sector tenancies.

With regard to PSR's 10:05 am post I think that Housing Officers/Advisers should give their customers full and impartial advice on their options based upon the law as it stands, not based upon personal political prejudices for or against that law. 

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Anonymous

Anonymous

25/11/2010 9:48 am

@ Eddie E

You are right. The last thing we would want is for housing staff to express an opinion, act like  human being, or defend the values that led them into the social housing sector.

We must be 'professional' (but not be paid as a 'professional' of course.)

We must obey.

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Deonne Connelly

Deonne Connelly

Posts: 2

02/12/2010 4:14 pm

Succession is a continuation of tenancy so yes the successor would in theory take over the original tenancy start date but as PSR stated the RTB looks at the length of time the successor has been a tenant not, the tenancy start date.

In relation to assignment this is passed from one tenant to another by a deed of assignment which does not create a new tenancy. Again though RTB looks at the length of time the assignee has been a tenant. So if you MEX in from a HA for example you only begin accruing your RTB discount from the assignment date.

sorry!

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