Domestic abuse survivors in social housing to keep their tenancy as abusers face eviction
A measure tabled for the Social Housing Bill on Tuesday will let a survivor stay in the home while the perpetrator is made to leave, and a survivor who already has a protection order will not have to prove the abuse again.
Domestic abuse survivors in social housing will be able to keep their tenancy and stay in their home while the perpetrator is made to leave, under a measure tabled for the Social Housing Bill on Tuesday, in what the Government describes as protection in social housing law for the first time without a survivor having to flee.
Where a court has already made a protection order, a survivor will no longer be asked to establish the abuse a second time. The measure strengthens reforms in the Bill that protect joint tenancies from abusive partners, and it is aimed at ending the choice between staying in danger and losing a home and a support network.
The Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, said: "No survivor should have to choose between staying with their abuser or losing their home, community and support network. We are changing the law so the perpetrator, not the survivor, can be made to leave."
No survivor should have to choose between staying with their abuser or losing their home, community and support networkAngela Rayner, Housing Secretary
She added: "Abusers will no longer be able to use a shared home as a weapon of control. Survivors will get the certainty of knowing their tenancy and their social home are protected."
The explanatory notes to the Bill, as brought from the House of Lords on 2 September 2026, explain the gap the reform addresses. Landlords can evict perpetrators, but only if the victim has already left the home. In joint tenancy cases there is no mechanism to transfer the tenancy into the victim's sole name, and the only available outcome is to end the tenancy entirely, with no legal safeguards for a victim who needs to be rehoused. Part 3 of the Bill makes provision to enable landlords to protect victims of domestic abuse.
The wider package tabled on Tuesday gives councils and housing associations twice as long to consider buying a social home before it leaves the sector, extending the notification period for disposals from 4 to 8 weeks, and gives councils more control over protecting eligible rural areas from the Right to Buy. Ministers expect 18,000 more homes to remain in the social sector across the coming ten years as a result of the package.
Council tenants will also get a simpler Right to Manage, under which local authority tenants can take responsibility for managing housing services through a Tenant Management Organisation. From April 2027 those organisations will also come within Freedom of Information law. Residents will then be able to ask them for information on subjects such as repairs, rent collection and the management of estates.
On homelessness, the Bill will introduce a statutory duty to collaborate, requiring key public bodies to identify households at risk and take coordinated action earlier, and a duty to offer, under which a private registered provider must offer a suitable home to a household that a local housing authority has referred to it, unless there is good reason not to. The measures sit alongside 442 million pounds of investment to tackle rough sleeping and 39 billion pounds of investment in council, social and affordable housing.
Kate Henderson, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: "No one should be forced to lose their home to escape abuse. We strongly welcome new powers to protect survivors' ability to remain safely in their homes and reduce their risk of homelessness."
Parliament first received the Bill on 14 May 2026. Its Commons stages are still to come, and that is when the new amendments are due to be tabled.
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