By Mike Edwards<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Changes to the Law <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n If a tenancy has been granted to a minor then to date it has probably been completed in the tenant\u2019s name with a Guarantor\u2019s Agreement in the background. However all this has now changed and that procedure may not be robust enough to withstand a challenge from the tenant against a section 21 notice issued while they are still under 18. This is courtesy of a recent Appeal Court decision known as The Hammersmith Case<\/p>\n An under age tenant had applied to the council for homelessness assistance when she was 16 and pregnant. The council provided her with temporary accommodation on an AST with standard terms and conditions. When it later received complaints from other residents about her conduct, it served notice to quit, brought a possession claim and obtained a possession order. The Court of Appeal however has allowed the tenant\u2019s appeal and struck out the possession order.<\/p>\n And the result is!<\/strong><\/p>\n This is because she was not 18 when the tenancy was granted. So the local authority was legally cast in the role of Trustee. However be warned the role would be assumed unwittingly by any Landlord unwittingly accepting the role of being the tenant\u2019s Trustee on the tenancy until the tenant reaches 18 at which time the danger automatically falls away. In effect\u00a0this decision is saying that ANY<\/strong> Landlord in granting an under 18 tenant an AST is in fact granting it in Trust for them as a Trustee and thus cannot serve notice to evict them as to do so beaches that Trustee status.<\/p>\n Therefore a Landlord cannot terminate such a tenancy or seek possession until the tenant reaches 18. A Landlord wishing to avoid such a result – but wanted to accommodate a minor \u2013 must therefore do so by providing them with non-exclusive accommodation because exclusive possession is the necessary hallmark of a tenancy. The way to provide non-exclusive accommodation is of course for the under 18 occupier to be an authorised occupier rather than a tenant.<\/p>\n What we should do<\/strong><\/p>\n So what has to happen is that the proposed Guarantor actually has to take the tenancy in their name. Clearly this cannot be an AST as the property not only will not be their main or principal residence (which it has to be to be an AST) but they are not even going to be living there. So at Castle Estates <\/a>we would grant a Common Law Non 88 Act tenancy to the person who was to be guarantor but now becomes the tenant and then let them give permission to nominate the minor as an authorised occupier. Such permission to occupy is not a legal interest in land so not covered by the Law of Property Act 1925..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mike Edwards \u00a0 Changes to the Law If a tenancy has been granted to a minor then to date it has probably been completed in the tenant\u2019s name with a Guarantor\u2019s Agreement in the background. However all this has now changed and that procedure may not be robust enough to withstand a challenge from …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[55],"tags":[24,64,70,72],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845,"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.castle-estates.co.uk\/staffordshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}