Court rejects claim 'one succession rule' unlawfully discriminated over divorce
Rules governing the right to take over a social housing tenancy when the former tenant dies do not discriminate unlawfully between widows and divorcees contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the High Court has ruled.
In London Borough of Haringey v Simawi and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Mulkhis Simawi’s mother had become a secure tenant after the death of her husband in 2001.
Haringey argued that she was therefore the one ‘successor’ tenant allowed under the Housing Act 1985, and so Mr Simawi could not succeed to the tenancy on her death in 2013 and was thus unlawfully occupying the property.
Ben Lask of Monckton Chambers acted for the Secretary of State.
The firm said in a commentary on the case that because in some circumstances a tenancy succession can happen more than once - for example where it is assigned in divorce proceedings - Mr Simawi argued that he had been discriminated against since had his mother acquired the tenancy through divorce rather than widowhood he could have stayed.
Mr Justice Murray accepted though the Secretary of State’s submission that the statutory rules were objectively justified.
Since the rules ensured that the one succession rule did not act as a deterrent to divorce, including in cases of domestic abuse, they had a legitimate purpose and satisfied the relevant test for proportionality, the judge said.
The court noted that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had said in evidence that social housing “is a scarce and finite resource. It is a valuable, publicly funded social asset.”
Evidence stated that the 2017 local authority housing stock in England was 1.6m homes, while 1.16m households were on waiting lists.
The judge said: “A secure tenancy confers on the tenant the right to occupy a home held as part of social housing stock and confers on the tenant substantive security of tenure.
“The primary objective of the statutory framework governing how such tenancies are granted and succeeded to is to ensure that social housing is distributed fairly.
“Against that background, the one succession rule is unimpeachable.”
Mark Smulian
