I have a residential caretaker whose wife has thrown him out of their tied accommodation for having an affair.He is required to live in the flat to perform his duties. He wants to keep working but cannot go back to the flat – reconciliation appears impossible. His wife says she can't leave because she needs the flat for their children. How can we resolve this so he can carry on carrying out his duties?
I'm afraid there is no nice answer to this problem. If they can't live together and he cannot do his job living anywhere else, then you are going to have to ask her to go. If you have a policy on relationship breakdown, look at that first.
Some residential caretakers have assured tenancies. If you use these, check she is not a joint tenant. If he is not living there and she has no tenancy then at most she has what is called a "bare licence", and you can give her notice to go.
If they were joint tenants, he can end the joint tenancy by giving notice to quit, and you can then go to court to obtain possession. She will then be homeless or threatened with homelessness, so you must talk to your local authority about rehousing options.
I suspect a colleague
I think one of our employees is involved in the unauthorised sale of keys for short-term lets. Should I confront them?
Presumably you already have some evidence on which your concern is based. I suggest you seek more so that, when you confront the employee, you are sure of your ground. Since I imagine that these are properties that ought currently to be vacant, it should not be hard to find out whether anyone is living there.
Same-sex partner dilemma
One of my tenants has died. His partner, who is of the same sex, has come into the office demanding he succeed the tenancy. I know this man was living in the property but my manager says he has no legal right to succeed. Who's right?
The law here is entirely unfair and very different to that applying to heterosexual couples. If the partner is not a joint tenant, he has no statutory right to succeed to a secure or assured tenancy.
In any event, the tenancy is not yours to dispose of. It belonged to the late tenant and if it was his solely it will have devolved through his will or intestacy like anything else that belonged to him. Depending on whether he made a will and on its terms, this could mean the tenancy passes to the partner, but it might mean it passes to some other person.
If the tenancy was secure, and there is no qualifying successor or the tenancy was inherited by someone else, it loses its statutory security and you should end it by notice to quit. It is then up to you whether to grant a fresh tenancy to the partner or to an external applicant.
If it was assured, the advice depends on who inherited the tenancy. If it was inherited by the partner, and your policy on non-qualifying successors says he should be allowed to remain, you need do nothing and because the property is his only or principal home the tenancy will remain assured. If your policy says he should not remain, you should go to court to end the tenancy using ground 7 (which is mandatory).
Balance is hard to strike
I refer to Stephen Boyo's advice on striking a balance between a fair and a sensitive allocation policy (13 July). In practice, even with the best will in the world, properties cannot normally be allocated with the degree of balance he idealised.
The primary aim of any allocation policy should be to address the needs of the individual applicant. There are separate instruments to deal with management problems if they subsequently arise. We have to make these distinctions and place emphasis accordingly.
Source
Housing Today
Postscript
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