All social housing providers who are regulated by the Homes and Communities Agency are required to publish clear and accessible tenancy policies. Colchester City Council still owns its own housing stock and is therefore required to publish a Landlord's Tenancy Policy setting our the types of tenancy it will offer and how it will deal with circumstances such as who can take over a tenancy when a tenant dies.
It should be noted that the requirement to publish a tenancy policy is different to the statutory requirement, under the Localism Act 2011, for all local authorities to publish a strategic tenancy strategy. Our Strategic Tenancy Strategy can be found here.
Colchester City Council's Landlord's Tenancy Policy sets out the types of tenancy that Colchester City Council offers and includes a number of policies which set out how the Council will manage its tenancies.
Tenancy Types
As part of the Localism Act 2011 that gave Local Authorities the opportunity to offer flexible tenancies, it has been agreed that Colchester City Council will continue to offer secure tenancies to its tenants.
Other types of tenancy offered by Colchester City Council include:
Secure tenancy - a lifetime tenancy - tenants are able to live in their home for the rest of your life, unless the tenancy conditions are broken.
Introductory tenancy - for all new council tenants lasting 12 months. After this period providing there are no issues, a secure tenancy is offered.
Demoted Tenancy - is a reduced level of tenancy. It removes a number of tenancy rights and reduces tenancy security. Tenancy demotion is used when there is a breach of tenancy conditions usually anti social behaviour.
Non-secure tenancies - offered to homeless tenants in temporary accommodation.
Information leaflets on tenancy management including Secure and Introductory tenancies, Mutual Exchanges, Ending your tenancy, Tenant Incentive Scheme and Tackling Anti Social Behaviour, can be found on the Colchester Borough Homes website. Colchester Borough Homes are our arms length management organisation (ALMO) and manage our council homes.
Our Policies
The suite of policies that form part of Colchester City Council's Landlord's Tenancy Policy include Succession, Relationship Breakdown and Essential Move Policies, please click on the links below to view the policies:
These polices will be implemented by our ALMO, Colchester Borough Homes.