Questions about Moving Out

If you have a joint tenancy and your partner moves out, your rights to stay or live in the property will depend on the type of tenancy you have with your partner and whether or not you are married or in a civil partnership. Splitting up with a partner can be painful. You may be tempted to just walk away without thinking about the implications for your housing situation.

You must inform ISHA as soon as your partner has moved out by contacting our Customer Service Team who will be able to advise you on the options available to you. You should also seek independent legal advice on your housing situation. Call us on 0300 131 7300, email isha@isha.co.uk, write to us or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR for more information.

Notice of Seeking Possession is a legal document that we must serve on one of our tenants before we can take them to court if we want to get a possession order. Notice of Seeking Possesion is served on a tenant when the tenant has broken a condition of the tenancy. This includes being in arrears with your rent, you or someone living with you have caused annoyance or nuisance (anti social behaviour) to your neighbours, you or anyone living with you is using your home for illegal or immoral purposes, you made false statements to obtain a tenancy etc. It is the first step towards requiring you to give up possession of your home.

Sometimes service of the Notice alone is enough to stop a problem and we may decide that court action is not necessary. The Notice of Seeking Possession is valid for 12 months from the date of issue, but in most cases we cannot start legal action until 28 days after the date the Notice of Seeking Possession was served. If action is not started within a further 12 months the notice is no longer valid. However, we can serve a new notice.

You would have the opportunity to present your side of the case to the court when the application is heard and you may be entitled to legal aid.

If you are a tenant and you rent all or part of your home to someone else, this is called subletting. The person who pays you rent is a subtenant. However, you will continue to be responsible for the tenancy obligations whether you live in the property or not. But before you can sublet all or part of your home, you must have obtained the consent of your landlord.

In most instances sub-letting the whole of your home is not allowed and if you do this without our permission you could be committing tenancy fraud which is a criminal offence. 

If you know of a property that is not being used by the legal tenant, you can report this in confidence to ISHA and ask to speak to our Housing Expert. Call us on 0300 131 7300, email isha@isha.co.uk, write to us or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR.

You can do this, anonymously if you wish. Alternatively you can email isha@isha.co.uk. If you would like to be kept informed, you can leave your details and an officer will contact you. ISHA takes issue of illegal subletting seriously and if we suspect someone of subletting without our consent we will carry out an investigation and gather evidence for court proceedings.

We are aware that when someone dies it can be a very sensitive time for families. However, there are a few things we must do in order maintain our records correctly. If a tenant dies we will take steps to end the tenancy. We have to serve a Notice to Quit. We will serve this legal notice at the property and to any Next of Kin we are aware of. If no-one contacts us and we believe there is no next of kin we will clear and take back possession of the property four weeks after the notice has been served. There may be a family member who wishes to take over the tenancy. If this is the case they should contact us so that we can assess whether they are eligible to succeed to the tenancy. Call us on 0300 131 7300, email isha@isha.co.uk, write to us or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR.

Succession can be quite complicated but the general principle is detailed below. However, anyone who wishes to succeed to a tenancy must contact our Housing Expert. To qualify to succeed, a person must be occupying the property as an only or principal home at the time of the tenant’s death and be either:

• The tenant’s spouse.
• Another member of the tenant’s family and have lived with the tenant throughout the 12 months prior to the tenant’s death.

‘Spouse’ means husband, wife, or persons living together in an established relationship ‘as if they were husband and wife’ (Antonio Mendoza v Ahmed Ghaidan).

‘Member of the tenant’s family’ means parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece. A relationship by marriage is included, as are ‘half blood’ relationships, adopted, stepchildren and illegitimate children.

Any tenant can send a letter to us containing their full address and signature, the date the letter was written, the date they wish the tenancy to end and their new address. The tenancy will end four weeks from the first Monday following receipt of the letter in the office. When we receive this termination letter we will write to the departing tenant explaining other things they must do before they leave the property.