If you rent your home from Brent Council, you are a council tenant. Our Housing Management team will manage your property and help you with any issues you have with your rent or home.
When you move into a council property, you will get a tenancy agreement. This sets out your responsibilities as a tenant and those of the council.
There are several types of tenancy agreements:
As a new tenant, you will be given an introductory tenancy for the first 12 months.
As an introductory tenant you have fewer rights and there are limits to what you can do to your property. For example, you cannot:
Your full rights are listed in your tenancy agreement. Contact your housing officer if you need a copy of these.
After one year, you will become a secure tenant as long as you have met the conditions of your introductory tenancy agreement.
As a secure tenant, can live in the property for the rest of your life, as long as you keep to the conditions of your tenancy.
You can:
Your full rights are listed in your tenancy agreement. Contact your housing officer if you need a copy of these.
A secure tenancy can be downgraded to a 12-month probationary tenancy if you have:
Demoted tenants can be evicted much more easily than secure council tenants.
If you keep to the terms of your tenancy agreement and don’t cause any further issues, you will automatically become a secure tenant again after 12 months.
If you want to share your tenancy with a partner, civil partner or spouse, you can apply for a joint tenancy.
A joint tenancy means that both tenants are jointly responsible for making sure the tenancy conditions are met but they have equal rights to stay in the property until the tenancy is ended.
If you’re married or in a registered civil partnership, you can apply for a joint tenancy at any time. If you’re a cohabiting couple or related (eg brother and sister), you will have to be able to prove that you’ve lived together for at least 24 months.
If you are a secure or fixed-term tenant, you have the right to rent out part of your property (sublet) or take in lodgers.
To sublet means you rent out part of your home to a subtenant in return for payment. The subtenant will have a part of your home (usually a bedroom) for their private use and you cannot enter this room without their permission.
You will need to ask permission before taking in a subtenant. We usually accept requests, unless we feel there is a good reason not to.
You can request to sublet part of your property through your tenant services account in My Account.
A lodger is someone who shares your home in return for a payment. They may have their own room, but they do not have exclusive use of it. They may only stay in your home for some days of the week.
A lodger may receive services such as laundry, cleaning and meals (in this case, they may also be known as a 'boarder').
Once you are a secure tenant, you can have a lodger as long as it does not cause overcrowding. You don’t need to ask our permission but we’d prefer you to tell us who is living with you in case there is an emergency.
We do not normally consider family members and partners who live with you as part of your household subtenants or lodgers.
You can update your household details through your tenant services account in My Account.
Lodgers and subtenants do not have any rights to:
Before you consider taking in a lodger or subletting your home, remember these important points:
If you need help or further information, please contact your Housing Officer.
Tenancy fraud continues to cause problems both financially and by depriving people who genuinely need a home. We view any act of fraud or attempted fraud very seriously.
If you believe a tenant has sublet a council or housing association home please report this.
We will take the necessary action, and you can stay completely anonymous.
Report housing fraud online now
You can also:
If you are living with a tenant and they pass away, you may have the right to inherit their tenancy via succession. The right to succession depends on your relationship to the person who has died and when their tenancy started.
If a tenancy started before 1 April 2012, you can succeed the deceased tenant’s property if you are:
If a tenancy started after 1 April 2012, you can succeed the deceased tenant’s property if you are:
Only one person can take over the tenancy. Where more than one person applies for succession and there is no remaining joint tenant, priority goes to the tenant’s spouse or civil partner.
If there is no spouse or civil partner who qualifies, the family members must decide who will succeed. If they are unable to agree, we will decide. Our decision is final.
A succession cannot take place if:
Your housing officer will tell you whether you have the right to succession. They will give you a ‘Request for succession’ application form to complete.
You may be asked to provide documents to prove how long you have been living at the property and your relationship with the deceased. We may also ask you to attend an interview.
The checks we make and the questions we ask are necessary for us to make the right decision about the tenancy. The case may be put on hold if you do not attend interviews if requested or send us the information we need.
You must pay charges for living at the property while we consider your application for a discretionary tenancy.
If you do not make payments and fall into arrears, we will end our assessment and you will need to leave the property as soon as possible. Our Customer Experience Team will give you advice and help you to take the next steps.
If you do not move out within a reasonable time, we will start legal action to take back the property.
If your application is successful, we will write to you to confirm your tenancy. We will also arrange time to talk about your new tenancy and give you your rent account number.
We will backdate your tenancy to the date immediately after the tenant’s death.
If you live at the property but do not succeed to the tenancy, you will have to move out and find your own accommodation.
If you are the spouse or civil partner of the deceased tenant, you can stay in your current home, and we will update the details of your tenancy.
However, if you are another family member you may need to move to a smaller property if the property has more bedrooms than you need. Your housing officer will tell you this when your request to succeed is approved.
When deciding your housing need, we will not be able to consider other people, including children, who may visit or stay temporarily at the property. If you have to move, we will offer you a home that meets your needs. We will take into account the areas where you would prefer to live.
If you are living in a home that is accessible or adapted for a disabled person and there is no longer somebody in the household that needs this type of accommodation, you will need to move.
With there being such a demand for housing in Brent, most applicants understand why we need to move them to a smaller property. However, if you refuse our offer of a suitable home we will start legal action and apply for a possession hearing at the county court.
On a very limited number of occasions we will offer a tenancy to an applicant or household under our discretionary tenancy policy. You will be considered for re-housing if you:
If you are a secure tenant, you have the right to assign your tenancy to somebody who would be entitled to succeed to it when you die.
The right to assign your home depends on your relationship to the person you wish to pass the tenancy on to. Family members that are considered are:
You can only assign your tenancy with the approval of Brent Council. Please contact your housing officer for further information.
You must give us at least four weeks’ notice in writing if you want to end your tenancy and move out of your council home.
You can give notice to end your tenancy through your tenant services account in My Account.
Creating an account is easy and only takes a couple of minutes. All you need to get started is an email address, to use as a login. We will then send you details on how to activate your account.
Register to My Account
To access your Tenant Services, you will need to activate your Tenancy Account the first time you log in.
If you are a joint tenant and one of you gives us notice to end the tenancy, the tenancy will end for all the tenants.
If you are a joint tenant and you want to move out before the end of the notice period all tenants in a joint tenancy must sign a notice to quit.
When you move out, the property, and any garden, must be left clean and tidy and empty of any furniture, belongings and rubbish. If you do not leave your property in a reasonable condition, we will charge you for the cost of cleaning and clearing out the property.
If there are items of furniture or white goods that you can’t take with you or don't want, there are recycling organisations and charities that may collect them free of charge, as long as they are in good condition. Organisations such as Freegle, Freecycle and others can help you pass unwanted belongings on to other people who may want them and local charity shops may also take them from you.