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Question Title: Joint tenants and principal residence.
| Question: 312 |
| We would like to let a property to three joint tenants. One of them will only use the property from Monday to Friday, he will return to the property he owns at the weekends i.e. his principal residence. Can we create a tenancy under an assured shorthold ?
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| Answer: |
| As you are clearly aware, an assured (or AST) tenancy under the Housing Act 1988 requires the tenant to occupy the dwelling-house as “his only or principal home” (s.1(b)). Fortunately, in your case, the Housing Act pre-empted the situation that you have and simply requires at least one of them to occupy in this way – therefore you will not have the tricky problem of having to determine whether the tenant in question occupies the property as his ‘principal home’ A tenancy ..is for the purpose of this Act an assured tenancy if and so long as :– (b) the tenant or, as the case may be, at least one of the joint tenants occupies the dwelling house as his only or principal home. (Housing Act 1988s(1)(b) ). Therefore, assuming one of the two remaining tenants meets this criteria we cannot see a problem.
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References:
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Pages:
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Hyperlinks:
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Letting Update Journal |
Jan 2001 page 17 |
letting-update-journal.html
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Letting Handbook |
Chapter 9 |
letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html
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For more information, discuss on the Forum
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Tenancies