HOUSING—LOCAL AUTHORITY HOUSES—SECURITY OF TENURE

House of Lords
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope, Lord Scott, Lord Walker and Lord Mance
16 May 2007

The words “he was a joint tenant and has become the sole tenant” in s 88(1)(b) of the Housing Act 1985 (HA 1985) mean that the tenant is a joint tenant under a secure tenancy and has become the sole tenant under a secure tenancy; the events to which s 88(1) refers are events in relation to tenancies which have become secure tenancies, and not to events which happened before the Housing Act 1980 (HA 1980) came into force.

Ashley Underwood QC and Catherine Rowlands (instructed by Mirz Ahmed) for the authority.
Jan Luba QC and John Beckley (instructed by Aston Legal Centre, Birmingham) for the defendant.

The proceedings concerned the construction of a provision of Pt IV of HA 1985, which consolidated the law on secure tenancies originally introduced by HA 1980. The defendant’s mother was a secure tenant of a house in Birmingham belonging