Adding a joint tenant to a tenancy

Northwards Housing manages your home, but it is owned by Manchester City Council. This means that, by law, the tenant in a Northwards home is a 'council tenant'.

A joint tenant is someone who has their name on the tenancy agreement, has equal responsibility for paying the rent with other joint tenants, and has the full legal rights and responsibilities of a council tenant.

Before you add someone to the tenancy agreement, make sure you are happy with the responsibilities . . .

  • Rent & rent arrears
    Joint tenants are each responsible for all the rent and for any rent arrears. We can recover all rent arrears owed for your home from any individual joint tenant. So two joint tenants may live in a home where the overall rent is £60 a week. One of them may pay us their £30 share every week. But if the second person gets into rent debt and leaves the home owing £500, the first tenant can be held responsible for their full debt.
  • If a joint tenant leaves
    If you are joint tenants, any one of you can end the tenancy by giving us four weeks' written notice. We do not legally have to allow the remaining joint tenant(s) to stay in the home - it depends on their circumstances and whether the property could be more suitable for another type of household (like a family for instance). But we will not ask you to move out of the home without a good reason.

Creating a joint tenancy

Before we create a joint tenancy we must officially end the current tenancy. This does not mean the current tenant has to move out - it's usually a smooth administrative process where one tenancy ends and the new one begins.

But there can be difficulties in certain circumstances - if the person you want to become a joint tenant has had problems with a tenancy in the past. They may have been evicted for rent arrears, or caused problems for neighbours for instance.

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