11 - Security of tenure

Summary

Tenure is the oddest thing. We use it differently between disciplines, and the various statutory overlays on it seem, at times, incomprehensible. The purpose of this chapter is to set out the different regimes in relation to each tenure as identified in housing policy, and used throughout this book: owner-occupation; private renting; PRP renting; local authority renting. The focus in this chapter is on the nature and degree of security in each such tenure. Security, in this sense, refers to the rights that the occupier has in their property; or, to put it another way, the ease or difficulty with which the provider (including a mortgage lender) is entitled to take possession from the occupier. What is often regarded as the most secure form of tenure – ownership – turns out to be less secure.

Setting the tenures side by side in this chapter also fulfils a further purpose, emphasising the oddity of tenure by comparison with each other. This is important because, as we saw in Part II of this book, the type of tenure accessed by a household is not necessarily related to the point of entry – a homeless household may be offered a private sector tenancy, a licence of a property (in whatever sector), a shared ownership lease, a PRP tenancy, and one could go on; and, in Part I, we noted how the regulation of social housing was converging. The point is that the choices which are made at the point of entry determine the nature and degree of security to which the household becomes entitled. Further, choices made subsequently – such as whether to vote for or against an LSVT, or to take advantage of a sale-and-rentback offer – may alter the security of tenure framework for the household. Security of tenure, on the other hand, has its roots in housing regulation (Part I of this book). This is, perhaps, the absurdity of security of tenure, responding to superimposed structures without reference to the mode of access. As Ellickson (2008: 93) observes, households are highly unlikely to structure their affairs ‘in the shadow’ of ‘endgame laws’. However, those endgame laws, a phrase which might sum up the notion of security of tenure, are key to understanding the household’s rights during its occupation as well as defending any claim to possession.