Loss of right to buy

Knowsley Housing Trust v White; Shepherd’s Bush Housing Association v Porter; Islington LBC v Honeyghan-Green H of L TLR 15 December; SJ 13 January p 32

The right to buy pursuant to a notice served under s122 of the Housing Act 1985 is not lost once a secure tenancy has been determined under a possession order and it can be retrospectively reinstated when the secure tenancy was retrospectively revived by subsequent discharge of the order. Section 121 suspends a tenant’s ability to exercise or pursue the right to buy while any of the situations identified in that section obtained: But did not remove the right permanently. Accordingly, the right to buy pursuant to a notice already served under s122 was not permanently lost once the tenant was obliged to deliver up possession. It revived retrospectively once the possession order was discharged, an assured tenancy subject to a possession order ends only when possession is delivered up. A tenant who has not complied strictly with the terms of a suspended possession order but has paid off all the arrears and costs so that the landlord could not enforce the order, was not prevented from returning to the court or a further order. Accordingly, the House allowed Julie White’s appeal against the refusal of her application for a declaration that she remained an assured tenant pending execution of a suspended possession order, in circumstances where she sought to exercise her ostensible right, preserved under the Housing Act 1985 to buy the premises from the landlord. It also allowed Oslo Porter’s appeal from the refusal to discharge a suspended possession order in circumstances where he did not comply with its terms, but subsequently made full payment. It upheld the decision that Maneova Honeyghan-Green’s right to buy had not ceased to be exercisable when the council obtained a suspended possession order, because it was reinstated when, on full payment of arrears, her secure tenancy revived.