About Your Tenancy
Our leaflet 
'Your Tenancy' (72KB - PDF Help) contains information on many issues
about living in your home. Further information is also given on the page below.
Secure Tenancy
Most of our tenants have a secure tenancy with us. As a secure tenant, we won't interfere with your rights to occupy your home unless you break any of your obligations in the Tenancy Agreement.
We can't make you leave your home without getting a Possession Order from a County Court.
Reasons why we may seek to get a Possession Order would include:
- Refusal to pay your rent
- Misuse of the property
- Not living in the property as your principal home
Following consultation with all secure tenants, we've recently made changes to our secure tenancy agreement. The revised Secure Tenancy Agreement became effective on 3 September 2007. All existing secure tenants were sent a Notice of Variation Letter, a copy of the new agreement and some explanatory notes.
Please click here to see a copy of the revised Secure Tenancy Agreement. (863KB - PDF Help)
Please click here to see a copy of the explanatory notes (736KB - PDF Help)
Please click here to see a copy of the Notice of Variation letter (70KB - PDF Help)
Non Secure Tenancy
If you are living in temporary accommodation you will have a non secure tenancy agreement. This does not give you as many rights as a secure tenant. For example you will not have the right to buy your property. If you need any further information about this, please contact our Housing Needs team on 01395 517469 or contact the housing needs team online.
Please click here to see a copy of the non secure tenancy agreement
(revised May 2008) (90KB - PDF Help)
Joint tenancies
A joint tenancy is a tenancy granted to two or more (up to a maximum of four) people.
If you are a joint tenant you should be aware that each tenant is jointly and separately liable for the obligations under the tenancy agreement. Also if one of the joint tenants ends the tenancy this will end the tenancy for everyone, and all joint tenants will need to leave the property.
Letting us know who is living at the property
At the start of your tenancy you will be asked for the names of all the occupants of the property, and a contact person or next of kin in case of emergencies. We ask that you update this information on an annual basis.
Taking over a tenancy when someone dies
‘Succession’ is when a tenant dies and the tenancy can sometimes be taken over by another member of the household. You can succeed to the tenancy if you are living in the property as your only or principal home at the time of the tenant's death and (a) you are the tenant's spouse or civil partner, or (b) you are another member of the tenant's family and have lived with the tenant throughout the period of 12 months ending with the tenant's death.
The size of your family must be appropriate to the size of the property. If the property is not suitable for your needs (for example the property becomes underoccupied) we may request you to move to a more suitable property. We can only use this reason between 6 and 12 months after the previous tenant's death and only by court order.
Only one succession is allowed by the Housing Act 1985. Where a joint tenant becomes a sole tenant this counts as the one succession allowed by law.
Lodgers and Subletting
A lodger is a person who pays you money to share the property (rent a room and share household facilities). You do not need our permission to take in a lodger but you do need to let us know who is living at the property.
You may sublet part of the property with our written consent but you must not sublet the whole property as this invalidates your secure tenancy. Subletting is when a sub tenancy is created out of the secure tenancy which gives up possession of all or part of the property.
For more information and advice about this please contact our Estate Management team on 01395 517458. Further information can also be found on our website page Lodgers and Subletting
More details about your tenancy can be found within our frequently asked questions by clicking here.
