General — overviewSuccession

Under a secure tenancy the single succession rules applies so that a qualified person will succeed to a tenancy as long as the tenant was not himself/herself a successor.

A qualified person can be:

• a spouse or civil partner

• another member of the tenant's family who has lived with the tenant for 12 months, using the property as a principal home; a family member can be:

• • spouse or civil partner

  • parent or grandparent

  • child or grandchild

  • brother or sister

  • uncle or aunt

  • nephew or niece

If no one is qualified to succeed, the tenancy vests in the tenant's estate. If the tenant dies intestate, the tenancy passes to the Public Trustee.

Under an assured shorthold tenancy, statutory succession is only available to a spouse or civil partner.

Capacity

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 creates a presumption of capacity for adults and provides the legal framework for acting and making decisions on behalf of individuals who lack the mental capacity to do so themselves.

Whether a person has sufficient mental capacity to make a decision depends on the nature of the decision. It is a legal, not a medical, test, although based on medical evidence.

Disability discrimination

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 operates in two ways:

• statutory duties to ensure access and egress from buildings

• treatment of tenants and whether disability discrimination affects capacity

With regard to new or refurbished buildings, planning and building regulations now require access and egress (often forgotten) for all, but the existing building stock causes most concern. Although some physical features can be removed or altered, the circumstances of the case may dictate that the duty holder should consider either avoiding the feature that is causing the difficulties or providing its services in some other way. The service must not be more expensive than that offered to others and everyone must be treated with dignity and consideration.

In Lewisham LBC v Malcolm the tenant sought to rely on his disability, paranoid schizophrenia, for subletting his tenancy. The House of Lords held that the relevant comparator was a tenant with no mental illness who had sublet. The council would have treated such a tenant in the same way.

Health and safety

Occupiers (whether employers or self-employed people) must ensure that any gas appliance, installation pipework or flue installed in their workplace is maintained in a safe condition.

The landlord or managing agent may also have duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, such as ensuring that heating equipment in common parts is maintained safely. The lease can be used to determine how these responsibilities are allocated.

Anyone who has control of premises, or some control over part of the premises, is responsible for fire safety and must:

• carry out (and keep up to date) a fire risk assessment, considering the possible risks to all people who could be affected

• take steps to prevent fires — eg ensuring electrical equipment is maintained

• provide fire precautions to safeguard people using the workplace — eg escape routes to a place of safety, fire-resistant doors and walls, fire alarms and fire-fighting equipment

Whoever is responsible for maintaining all or part property used as a workplace must manage any asbestos in the premises.

Building regulations

For internal improvements, Buildings Regulations approval may be needed; the local authority can serve an enforcement notice on the building owner specifying the extent of the offending work and the time scale within which it must be put right. If they do not comply with the notice, the local authority may carry out the work and recover its costs from the building owner.