Your rights as a council tenant

Most council tenants have a Scottish Secure Tenancy. Rights given to you by acts of parliament are known as statutory rights.

You can ask to hold a joint tenancy with another member of your household provided he or she is over 16 years old.

Succession is taking over a tenancy when a tenant dies. The tenancy can pass to a joint tenant, or a member of the family who was living in the home at the time of the death.

You may take in lodgers provided you do not overcrowd your home. You may sub-let part or the whole of your home. We allow you to do this for up to six months providing you meet certain conditions.

You must write to get our permission before you take in a lodger or sub-let. We must reply within a month.

Permission will only be granted if the current tenant has lived there for at least 12 months before the application is made.

If they were not the tenant throughout that period, then the:

• house must have been their only home during those 12 months
• person who was the tenant at that time must have told us that the person who is now the tenant was living there

Assignation is passing a tenancy on to someone else. You can pass your tenancy to another member of your household provided you ask our permission.

You may swap homes with another council tenant or a tenant of a housing association.

You are entitled to have certain repairs carried out within set times under the Right to Repair regulations. You will be told if a repair you have reported is classified as a 'qualifying' repair.

You can carry out home improvements provided you have written to us asking permission before you start. If we don't reply within one month of receiving your request and required information, you have the right to go ahead as if permission had been given.

We must treat all personal information about tenants as confidential. You can see information relating to you held by us on file or on computer provided you give us reasonable notice. We can make a charge for this. If you are unhappy about anything recorded in your files, you can ask for it to be corrected or erased. If we disagree with your request, you can insist that your views on the matter are added to the records.

You and your neighbours may choose to form a tenant management co-operative. This could take over managing one or more aspects of the housing service. Scottish Ministers must approve your new organisation. A consultation process is conducted before such a change could take place.

In the first instance, you should make a complaint to us.