Partner cannot inherit tenancy after relationship interrupted, judges rule

The long-term partner of a deceased council tenant cannot inherit a tenancy where the relationship was interrupted, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Susan Turley in 1995 moved into a four-bedroom house owned by the London Borough of Wandsworth where her long-term partner Roger Doyle was the sole tenant.

In 2010 the relationship broke down and Mr Doyle moved, leaving Ms Turley in the flat with their two younger children.

Mr Doyle returned in January 2012, but was seriously ill and died in March that year.

Underhill LJ said in Turley v London Borough of Wandsworth & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 189 that while a family member could in some circumstance succeed to a secure tenancy “on the ordinary reading of the provisions in question [Ms Turley] does not fall within the definition of a family member and so has no entitlement to succeed to Mr Doyle's tenancy.

“The council has accordingly required her to vacate the house. The essential issue raised by this appeal is whether that state of affairs gives rise to a breach of her rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.”

Ms Turley argued that to avoid that breach of her Convention rights section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998, should be read so give her a right to succeed to the tenancy, or that Wandsworth was anyway obliged by section 6 of the 1998 Act to grant her a fresh secure tenancy of the flat.

But the court held that Wandsworth’s rules were reasonable on how long a couple had to live together before one could be considered for succeeding to the tenancy.

Underhill LJ said: “I am sorry for the appellant because the comparatively brief interruption in her relationship with Mr Doyle after a long period of living together has had the consequence of depriving her of the right to succeed to the tenancy of the house which has been her home for many years.

“But bright-line rules will sometimes have hard effects, and they are not for that reason unlawful. The council cannot be blamed for insisting on the rules, in circumstances where there is an acute shortage of social housing, particularly no doubt of flats of the size occupied by the appellant.”

He added that before the proceedings began Wandsworth had offered Ms Turley a three-bedroom flat in exchange for her current home, which she did not accept.

Mark Smulian