Renting Homes: The Final Report - Law Commission

4.70 For social landlords and others who provide accommodation with long term
security of tenure, currently afforded by the secure and assured tenancy regimes,
in future by the secure contract, the situation is different. Accommodation
provided with the assistance of public funding represents a substantial social
investment that must be properly managed in the public interest, as well as in the
private interest of the people occupying the premises. It is obviously important
that contract-holders under secure contracts have their accommodation rights
properly protected. But ensuring that accommodation rights are properly
protected is not the same as ensuring that any particular contract-holder should
be entitled to go on residing in any particular home indefinitely.
4.71 To give two obvious examples:
(1) where a contract-holder is head of a family with a number of children, it is
right they should be allocated a family home; but when the children have
left home and a partner has died, it is a poor use of public resource if the
accommodation continues to be occupied by the sole remaining
occupant;
(2) where accommodation has been converted to special use by a disabled
person, it is a poor use of public resource if – when the disabled person
no longer needs that unit of accommodation – another who had been
living with the disabled person continues to reside there.
4.72 In practice, community landlords keep these matters under review and are often
able to negotiate transfers of accommodation to ensure a proper match between
occupant and accommodation. Nevertheless, there are occasions on which good
estate management needs to be underpinned by statutory provisions. Our
scheme provides that one of the grounds on which a community landlord may
seek possession arises from their need to use their housing stock efficiently. This
is balanced with the need to provide security and respect for home and family life,
as well as avoiding disrupting the sustainability of communities by unnecessarily
moving those who have created an established community.
4.73 We could have taken a broad approach to this and simply allowed the court to
make a possession order where “suitable alternative accommodation” is available
to the contract-holder, and where the court considers it reasonable to make an
order. This is – in essence – the position that currently applies to landlords of
assured tenancies. 88 Alternatively, we could have taken a more structured
approach, based on the position currently applicable to secure tenancies. This
defines more precisely the circumstances in which possession may be sought
against an existing occupier. 89
88 Housing Act 1988, sch 2, part 2, ground 9.
89 Housing Act 1985, sch 2, parts 2, 3 and 4.
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