Cohabiting tenants and safeguarding occupancy rights

The consent of the other joint tenant is not required. [1] Either of the joint tenants can apply to the court to have the expenditure incurred on the home apportioned between the partners. [2]

Where there is a sole tenant, in order to secure and or protect her/his occupancy rights in the home the non-entitled partner can:

• pay the rent due [3]

• ensure the landlord carries out statutory repairs [4]

• carry out essential repairs [5]

• if authorised by the court, carry out improvements to the home [6]

• take any other steps that the tenant may take to protect her/his occupancy rights. [7]

All this can be done without the consent of the tenant but only with the occupancy rights granted by the court.

Either the tenant or her/his partner can go to court to seek an order apportioning certain expenditure incurred in the home, for example the rent or payment for any essential repairs.

This means that a non-entitled partner could pay the rent to ensure that the family were not evicted and then seek an order regulating payments of rent from their partner. When deciding how to divide the expenditure the court will take account of each partner's financial resources. [8]