social housing

[markedimprovement]

Hi,

My husband and I have decided, very recently, to separate. We live in social housing, tenancy in joint names. i'm looking for advice on how this works. Who would keep the house/tenancy and would the other person be eligible to be re-housed? We have 2 dc and will be sharing custody 50/50.

ps. sorry if this is the wrong place for this post.

tia

Either of you could keep the house. The other should be eligible to be rehoused, but may have difficulty pursuading the council to count them as anything more than a single person - ie only eligible for a one bedroom flat. Councils really don't "do" 50-50 splits - they usually argue that they're not going to give any child a second bedroom when there are children on their list without any - so they push you to declare which one of you the child mainly lives with.

Your best bet would probably be to say that one child is living mainly with each of you (eg you have DC1 4 days a week on average and DC2 is 4 nights a week with his/her dad). That way whichever of you leaves may still be eligible for a two bedroom place.

It depends how much pressure there is on the system whether the one that leaves wilil actually get rehoused. If the council will accept that the person leaving has the main care of a child, they should be priority homeless and offered temporary accommodation - but this may not be very nice, and you may have great difficulty pursuading them that the person leaving is actually the main carer for the child, - to be honest, especially if it's a man.

My ex moved out of our council house (voluntarily), and we both had to write them a note confirming that the kids were living with me before they would agree to issue the tenancy in my name only. He has been on the council list ever since, but even when he was living in a friend's unheated caravan he wasn't high enough priority to get a one bed flat.

You can phone the council to ask their views - in some areas there's less pressure on housing and they will give part-time parents two bedrooms.

That's all good advice but one more thing: Removal of one name will mean the other person has a new tenancy. Do be careful that this won't move you to 'target rent'. This happened where I work - even if a partner dies the new tenancy would be at target rent ie more expensive! Fortunately this decision has now been reversed but it would be worth checking before you give formal notification that you're moving to a sole tenancy.

HI there,

When dp move d out in September I took his name off the tenancy on social housing property. In terms of everything else for me it stayed the same, I kept the house with dd in my name, rent the same and tenancy the same.

DP had to private rent a room though as council wouldnt help him. It depends on the area though.