Renting out and selling your home

This page provides you with information on renting out and selling your home.

Renting/sub letting your home

Leaseholders do not normally need the Council's permission to rent out their property unless they have a Council mortgage, in which case they should contact the Home Ownership team.

You will need to notify the Council if the property is sub-let your building insurance may be affected.

Failure to notify us may result in loss of insurance cover. The Insurance Section will need a copy of the tenancy agreement.

This will be required each time the agreement is renewed.

You should notify the Home Ownership team in writing, providing details of your correspondence address and emergency contact numbers.

You are still the owner of the property and therefore responsible for the service charges.

Your tenants must abide by the terms of the lease. If they do not, we may take action against you as the owner of the property.

You should also contact your mortgage lender if you wish to sub-let your property to check that the terms of your mortgage will allow this.

You can only let your property as a private residential flat for the occupation of one family only.

Advice for private landlords

Selling your home

Leaseholders do not need the Council's permission to sell their property.​

Will I need to repay any of the Right to Buy discount if I sell my home?

If you purchased the property from the Council under the Right to Buy, you will need to repay all or some of the discount depending on when you made your application to buy the property.

Information from the Council

The person buying your property may want details of the service charges and any works that have recently been carried out or are planned for the future.

Your solicitor will normally write to us asking for any information they require. He or she should contact the Home Ownership team.

Please ensure your solicitor requests any information required at the earliest possible opportunity.

We cannot guarantee that short notice requests will be processed in less than 15 working days.

Notify the Council

It is the new leaseholders' responsibility to notify Havering Council's Legal Services Division that the lease needs to be assigned into different names.

This must be done within 21 days of completion. The leaseholders' details cannot be amended until the official assignment has been received by the Council.

Failure to do so is a breach of the lease agreement. The building insurance cover will also be affected if the lease is not in the correct names.