What is a tenancy?

When working in, or researching the rental sector we come across the word ‘tenancy’ all the time.

We all make the similar assumption that tenancy means the type of rights and/protection someone has in a property.

More often than not, we associate tenancy with Assured shorthold tenancies (AST)  in particular.

 

However, the fun fact here it that ALL types of let are in fact tenancies, it is then down to the circumstances surrounding the let that determines what level of protection from eviction and rights the occupant has.

 

The science bit:

Let’s start with the origin of the word tenure.

In Middle English it’s called tenure.

In Latin  *tenitura, from *tenitus,  tentus (from teneō) + -ura.

 

All of these meaning the same thing:-

the conditions under which land or buildings are held or occupied

 

So how many types of tenure are there?

·       Owner

·       Leasehold

·       Secure 

·       Protected

·       Assured

·       Assured shorthold

·       Basic occupier

·       Excluded occupier

 

Each of these tenancies rely on the law and case law to establish how they will be created.

 

Owner is simple to explain, the interest in land is owned outright by the person.

They have the title to the property, they pay the taxes and rates

 

Leaseholders are in fact tenants, they may only ever own the lease and not the building so live in the property as tenant to the freeholder/owner. The lease is for a set period of time normally 99 or 125 years. Unless the leaseholder makes arrangements to extend it, once the lease ends, ownership of the property returns to the freeholder.

 

Secure and protected provide the occupants the highest level of security without owning any part of the property or its lease.

Defunded by Part 4 of the Housing Act 1985

Secure and protected tenancies are normally issued by local authority and are much less common now

Eviction generally required the tenant to have breached the contract 

 

Assured / Assured shorthold

As defined by   s.1(1) Housing Act 1988

An assured tenancy is defined as a tenancy of a dwelling-house let as a separate dwelling to an individual, who is a single (sole) or joint tenant, where the tenant or at least one of the joint tenants occupies the house as their only or principal home

Assured and ASTs are in principle the same, except an AST allows the landlord to issue a no fault notice, known as s21

 

But to evict an assured tenant you will normally require them to ah w breached the contract 

 

Basic occupier /Excluded occupier

Most tenants are protected by either the:

·       Rent Act 1977 (regulated tenants)

·       Housing Act 1985 (secure tenants)

·       Housing Act 1988 (assured and assured shorthold tenants)

 

If a tenant does not come within the protection of one of these Acts or another statute giving security of tenure, they are either an occupier with basic protection or an excluded occupier.

Under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 occupiers with basic protection cannot be evicted without a court order. A landlord must follow the correct procedure to evict an occupier with basic protection.

 

Excluded occupiers however do not have protection from eviction and are not subject to Protection from eviction act 1977

The most common example of his are

 

·       people sharing accommodation with a resident landlord

·       people renting holiday lets

 

So when embarking on renting a property, it is worth doing some research to ascertain what type of tenancy you will be embarking in and what legal requirements you have as a landlord but also what rights and protections your tenant may also have.