My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment, which now has support from all four corners of the House. I add a brief footnote to the compelling case just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt. This is a rather modest amendment, as it covers only the transfer of a tenancy where the victim is a joint tenant. A more radical but perfectly defensible amendment would have proposed the transfer of the tenancy where the perpetrator was the sole tenant and the victim was living lawfully in the property as a spouse or partner, but not as a joint tenant. I should have been happy to sponsor such an amendment—with adequate safeguards, of course.
Once again, we find that Scotland has stolen a march on England with its amendment to its domestic abuse Bill. That amendment enables either the social landlord or the survivor/tenant to do just what I have said: to seek a transfer of tenancy through a court order. It can transfer a sole tenancy in the perpetrator’s name into a sole tenancy in the survivor’s name. Our amendment is more modest and proposes that the survivor can apply for a transfer of tenancy through
the county court only if it is a joint secured or assured social tenancy, shared with the perpetrator. Of course, in those circumstances, the tenant is already known to and approved by the landlord.
The amendment is one of the domestic abuse commissioner’s top recommendations. At a round table last month with the Chartered Institute of Housing, Shelter, the National Housing Federation and the National Federation of ALMOs, there was unanimous support for this initiative. Since the A New Deal for Renting consultation in 2019, the organisation Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, to which I am grateful for its briefing, has regularly met the department about joint tenancies and discussed the amendment. The organisation has sought to address the concerns expressed in the letter that the Minister, my noble friend Lady Williams, sent to us, which stated that
“there are good practical and principled reasons for the rules which seek to balance the rights and interests of each tenant and the landlord.”
I shall quickly go through those rights and interests. Those of the social landlord would be basically unchanged because the nature of the tenancy agreement would stay the same. The rights of the tenant-survivor would also stay the same by their retaining the right to continue to live safely in their home. The rights of the perpetrator would, of course, be affected, and I agree that we should be cautious about making anyone homeless. However, in the circumstances to which the Bill applies, we have to strike a balance. If the perpetrator leaves, he may indeed face homelessness, probably as a single person. But if he does not, the innocent party and any children would also face either homelessness or continuing harm by staying put.
The amendment provides that where there is such a dispute and this balance has to be struck, the matter should be resolved by the county courts, which would hear both sides of the case before reaching a judgment. If a perpetrator loses but remains in the property, the normal eviction process would take place. However, in many cases, he may already have left due to a domestic abuse protection order, a restraining order or an occupation order, or he may have done so voluntarily. Under the amendment, the courts would have to define affordability, but this is something they already do, and it would be based on the survivor’s income and access to benefits to cover the rent.
There are further injustices in the present position, which were touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt. At the moment, the perpetrator can leave the property and then unilaterally end the joint tenancy. That cannot be right. He can stop the survivor accessing housing benefit because his income is taken into account, but he will not be paying. As we have heard, the survivor cannot change the locks without the perpetrator’s consent. Without the amendment, if the perpetrator does not leave, the survivor has to resort to costly legal proceedings. That cannot be right, either, because it can take up to two years to complete the process and, depending on legal aid, can cost up to £10,000.
I therefore hope, as the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, has just said, that the Minister will listen sympathetically to the case made this afternoon and indicate that there is some flexibility in the position that the Government have adopted so far.