Legal background
- Currently, under the Housing Act 1985 (‘the 1985 Act’), local authority landlords may grant their tenants either secure periodic tenancies or secure flexible tenancies. Secure periodic tenancies (commonly referred to as ‘lifetime tenancies’) have no fixed end date and can only be brought to an end by the landlord obtaining a possession order on one of the grounds for possession set out in Schedule 2 to the 1985 Act, which are mainly fault grounds. Flexible tenancies, which were introduced by the Localism Act 2011, are tenancies granted for a fixed term of no less than two years. It is for the landlord to decide which type of tenancy to grant.
- Schedule 7 to the Housing and Planning Act 2016 (‘the HPA 2016’) amends the 1985 Act to prevent the creation in future of secure periodic tenancies (referred to in the HPA 2016 as ‘old-style secure tenancies’), except in limited circumstances. It also removes the power to grant new flexible tenancies and instead requires that new shorter term tenancies should generally be granted. The HPA 2016 includes a power for the Secretary of State to prescribe in regulations the circumstances in which a local authority may still grant an old-style secure tenancy.
