Succession rights
If a tenant dies and is in a joint tenancy, then the other joint tenant or tenants do have an automatic right to remain in the property (Right of Survivorship). If the tenant was a sole tenant, the right to succession depends on whether the tenant had a periodic or fixed term tenancy. If in the case of a fixed term tenancy which is still running, the executors will arrange for it to be passed onto whoever is left the tenancy in the will, however if there is no will then a party or parties inherits the tenancy under the intestacy rules.
If it was a statutory periodic or contractual periodic tenancy, the tenant’s husband or wife or a person who lived with the tenant as husband or wife, has the automatic right to succeed to a periodic tenancy unless the tenant who died acquired the tenancy through a previous succession. Only one succession is allowed on the property.
No one else in the family has an automatic right to succession (s17 Housing Act 1988).
The Landlord has a right to possession under Ground 7. This is applicable if the tenancy was a contractual periodic tenancy or, if it was or becomes a statutory periodic tenancy and if there is someone living in the property who does not have a right to succeed to the tenancy. The one main condition for this to happen is that the Landlord must start possession proceedings within a year of the death of the original tenant.
In the case of a short-hold tenancy, the Landlord has automatic rights to regain the property at the end of any fixed term, even if the tenant had a right to succession. The one main condition for this to happen is that the Landlord gave the proper form of 2 months’ notice under Section 21, that they required possession.
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