Probation period for tenants considered

THE DEPARTMENT of the Environment is considering introducing a mandatory one-year probation period for new local authority tenants as a means of addressing anti-social behaviour.

A spokesman for the department confirmed the proposal was being examined. “It would require primary legislation but the proposal is that new tenants would have to refrain from any behaviour that could be termed ‘anti-social’ for a period of a year before being issued with a long-term contract between them and their landlord, the local authority,” he said.

Anti-social behaviour is defined in the 1997 and 1998 Housing Acts as both “the manufacture, production, preparation, importation, exportation, sale, supply, possession for the purpose of sale or supply or distribution of a controlled drug”, and “any behaviour which causes or is likely to cause any significant or persistent danger, injury, damage, loss or fear to any person living, working or otherwise lawfully in or in the vicinity of a house provided by the housing authority”.

Such behaviour is an ongoing issue for local authorities and their tenants, and current means of tackling it are felt to be reactive and time-consuming, while the behaviour often continues. A probationary year, it is believed, would encourage tenants not to behave anti-socially. The housing charity Threshold said it had no issue with a probationary period in principle, but questioned its length.