In this article Elisabeth Bradshaw reviews assured tenants’ rights to succession and assignment.

All assured tenants have a right to succession and assignment provided by the Housing Act 1988. Those rights may be added to by your tenancy agreement.

Section 17 of the 1988 Act provides that, where a sole tenant dies and immediately before the death, the tenant’s spouse occupies the dwelling-house as his or her only and principal home, the spouse will succeed the tenancy. However, this will not occur if the tenant him/herself was a successor.

The tenant him or herself will have been a successor if:-

• the tenant had succeeded to the tenancy previously pursuant to Section 17 or had inherited the tenancy under a will or the rules of intestacy;
• the tenancy was previously a joint tenancy held by the tenant and one or more persons and, prior to the tenant’s death, the tenant became a sole tenant by survivorship, i.e: the other joint tenant died or if a new tenancy had been created, the tenant succeeded the earlier/older tenancy.