Housing Act 1985

The Housing Act 1985 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act introduced laws relating to the succession of council houses. It also facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations.

Selected contents

Power to acquire land and buildings

Section 17 authorises local housing authorities to acquire land and buildings for housing construction and for housing use.
Cornwall Council argued in 2012, unsuccessfully, that the words "at a reasonable price" were implied by the wording of this section. The Council wanted to annul certain leases entered into by two predecessor local authorities because they considered the costs excessive and not to have been agreed by reference to local market rents, but the Court of Appeal said that such words or legal intent were not implied by the act.

Overcrowding

Sections 324-326 replicate part 10 of the Housing Act 1935, referring to a "room standard" and a "space standard" as means by which to control "statutory overcrowding". A breach of these standards is a criminal offence.

No. of rooms	No. of people
1	2
2	3
3	5
4	7
5 or more	2 for each room

Floor area of room	No. of people
110 sq. ft.	2
90 ‒ 110 sq. ft.	1
70 ‒ 90 sq. ft.	1
50 ‒ 70 sq. ft.

A child under 10 is counted as one half of a person.

Section 610

Section 610 provides a power for the County Court to vary the terms of a lease or a restrictive covenant to allow for conversion of a single dwelling into two or more dwellings, where either the lease or the restrictive covenant would prohibit such a conversion. The power can be exercised where local housing need and demand has changed since the dwelling was built, or where planning permission for the conversion has been granted, and after consultation with "any person interested" in the matter. The use of this mechanism to facilitate change in residential property usage offers an alternative to the use of section 84 of the Law of Property Act 1925, which provides for circumstances in which the Lands Tribunal can discharge or revise a restrictive covenant. The use of section 610 was reviewed in the Appeal Court case of Lawntown v Camenzuli in 2007, where Lord Justice Richards noted that there had been relatively few reported legal cases where interpretation of the section had been raised.