About moving out

If you have a joint tenancy and your partner moves out, your rights to stay or live in the property will depend on the type of tenancy you have with your partner and whether or not you are married or in a civil partnership. Splitting up with a partner can be painful. You may be tempted to just walk away without thinking about the implications for your housing situation.

You must inform ISHA as soon as your partner has moved out by contacting our Customer Service Team who will be able to advise you on the options available to you. You should also seek independent legal advice on your housing situation. Call us on 0300 131 7300, email TenancyTeam@isha.co.uk, write to us or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR for more information.

We do not want to take anyone’s home from them, but ... 

If you have breached the conditions of living in your home, for example by not paying rent, or through anti-social behaviour we have to take your home from you. 

If this is the case then you are issued with a Notice of Seeking Possession. This is a legal document that we must serve before we can take you to court if we want to get a possession order for your home. 

Sometimes if the problem is resolved we may decide that court action is not necessary.  

The Notice of Seeking Possession is valid for 12 months from the date of issue. In most cases we cannot start legal action until 28 days after the date the Notice of Seeking Possession was served. If action is not started within a further 12 months the notice is no longer valid. A new notice can be issued. 

If you are issued a notice you would have the opportunity to present your side of the case to the court when the application is heard. 
You might wish to seek independent legal advice. 

If you are a tenant and you rent all or part of your home to someone else, this is called subletting. The person who pays rent to you is a subtenant. However, you will remain responsible for the tenancy obligations whether you live in the property or not. But before you can sublet all or part of your home, you must have obtained the consent of your landlord.

In most instances, subletting the whole of your home is not allowed, and if you do this without our permission, you could be committing tenancy fraud, which is a criminal offence.

If you know of a property that the legal tenant is not using, you can report this in confidence to us and ask to speak to the Tenancy Team. Call us on 0300 131 7300, email TenancyTeam@isha.co.uk, write to us or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR.

You can do this anonymously if you wish. If you would like to be kept informed, you can leave your details, and an officer will contact you. We take illegal subletting seriously, and if we suspect someone of subletting without our consent, we will carry out an investigation and gather evidence for court proceedings.

We are aware that when someone dies, it can be a very sensitive time for families. However, there are a few things we must do to maintain our records correctly.

If a tenant dies, we will take steps to end the tenancy. We have to serve a Notice to Quit. We will serve this legal notice at the property and to any next of kin we are aware of. If no one contacts us and we believe there is no next of kin we will clear and take back possession of the property four weeks after the notice has been served.

A family member may wish to take over the tenancy. If this is the case, they should contact us so that we can assess whether they are eligible to succeed. Call us on 0300 131 7300, email TenancyTeam@isha.co.uk, write to us, or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR.

Succession is where someone takes over a tenancy when a sole tenant or one member of a joint tenancy has died.

The rules around succession can be complicated, but generally 
you must be occupying the property as an only or principal home at the time of the tenant’s death. You must be: 

• The joint tenant 
• The tenant’s spouse  
• Another member of the tenant’s family and have lived with the tenant throughout the 12 months prior to the tenant’s death. 

If you would like to apply to succeed to a tenancy or require detailed information about this, please call us on 0300 131 7300, email TenancyTeam@isha.co.uk, write to us or visit us at 102 Blackstock Road, London, N4 2DR. 

Any tenant can send a letter to us at TenancyTeam@isha.co.uk containing their full address and signature, the date the letter was written, the date they wish the tenancy to end and their new address. The tenancy will end four weeks from the first Monday following receipt of the letter in the office. When we receive this termination letter we will write to the departing tenant explaining other things they must do before they leave the property.