When a tenant dies

If you have a joint tenancy and your co-tenant dies, it's likely the tenancy will transfer into your sole name. This is called ‘succession’.

Please contact your housing officer if you’d like to discuss succession.

If a sole tenant dies, it may be possible to pass on their tenancy to someone else, for example:  

• A spouse or partner if the property was their main or only home 
• Another family member if they lived with the tenant for at least 12 months before their death, and it’s written in their tenancy agreement 

To succeed to a tenancy, you must claim this in writing within four weeks of the tenant's death.

You may have the right to succeed to a tenancy, but not necessarily the same property. If the home is larger than you reasonably need, or is specially adapted for the previous tenant, we’ll aim to offer you a more suitable home. 

Please contact us for further information and guidance. 

Please contact us to confirm arrangements for the home and tenancy.

We’ll need written notice to end the tenancy and a copy of the tenant's death certificate. You can send us these by post or email.   

Please contact us as soon as possible after the tenant's death and we’ll guide you through what needs to happen. 

Things to consider: 

• When a tenant dies, the tenancy must still be formally ended  
• Rent will need to be paid until you return the keys 
• If the tenant received Housing Benefit, this will automatically end on the Sunday after their death
• If there's any rent left owing, we will recover this from the tenant’s estate once the keys are returned
• Please let us know who is managing the tenant’s affairs (for example, a solicitor or executor). 

Preparing the property 

Before the tenancy ends, please clear the home of all personal belongings, including furniture, carpets, curtains, anything in the garden and any rubbish.

We may charge you for disposing of anything left behind.

Please also: 

• Redirect the tenant’s post 
• Provide gas and electricity meter readings to the relevant suppliers for final bills 
• Turn off the water at the stopcock 
• Lock the property and close all windows 
• Notify the local council about Council Tax and Housing Benefit (if applicable). 

We’re here to support you through this difficult time, and we’ll do everything we can to help make things easy for you.