ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the history of statutory succession in relation to both private and social rented sectors. A successor may have a claim to a statutory or assured tenancy on the death of a regulated tenant. Until the Housing Act 1988 amended the succession provisions of the Rent Act, the tenant’s unmarried cohabitee was not regarded as a spouse and, in order to become a statutory tenant by succession, had to prove that he or she was a member of the tenant’s family. As before, the spouse of the deceased tenant is entitled to be the first successor provided that he or she was residing in the dwelling-house immediately before the tenant’s death. Where the first successor was a statutory tenant by way of succession, a further succession is possible but the conditions to be satisfied are stricter than those which applied to deaths before the 1988 Act came into force.
