Tenure of household

A classification of whether a household rents or owns the accommodation that it occupies. For rented households, this variable also includes information about the type of landlord who owns or manages the accommodation.

Total number of categories 9

This variable is derived from two questions on the household form on household tenure and landlord.

Household question 12: Does your household own or rent this accommodation?

• Owns with a mortgage or loan
• Owns outright
• Owns with shared equity (for example, LIFT, Help-to-Buy)
• Rents (with or without housing benefit)
• Part owns and part rents (shared ownership)
• Lives rent free

Household question 13: Who is your landlord? (Only asked of households who are renting)

• Council (Local Authority) or Housing Association / Registered Social Landlord
• Private landlord or letting agency
• Other

Information about household tenure and landlord (if renting) is extensively used by local authorities as input to local area profiles. The data are also used in the preparation of Housing Needs and Demand assessments and Local Housing Strategies, which are used by central government to inform resource allocation and are widely used in other sectors for equalities monitoring, targeting investment, and service planning and delivery.

This variable is broadly comparable with the Tenure of household variable produced by ONS for the 2021 census in England & Wales. ONS have included an additional classification for "Social rented: Other social rented".

This variable is broadly comparable to the one created for Scotland's Census 2011. An additional classification ("Owned: Shared Equity (e.g. LIFT or Help-to-Buy)") has been included for 2022 and the private rented classifications have been simplified. 

Tenure provides information about whether a household rents or owns the accommodation that it occupies and, if rented, combines this with information about the type of landlord who owns or manages the accommodation.

Total number of categories 11

LANDLORD (Primary variable)

SIZHUK11 (Derived variable)

TENURE (Primary variable)

TERMIND (Primary variable)

In the statistical bulletin for release 2A, the 2001 Census data published in 2005 was used, which has a revised allocation of the “living rent free” category.

From the reported results, it appeared there was confusion when completing the Tenure question, as many believed they were renting from their council when they were actually renting from housing associations or private landlords following the transfer of housing stock in some council areas. This issue was particularly clear in six council areas – Glasgow City, Argyll & Bute, Eilean Siar, Inverclyde, Scottish Borders and Dumfries & Galloway – where no council house stock was retained by the local authority, yet initial census counts showed many households recording their tenure type as rented from the council. In these council areas, the responses for ‘Rented: Council’ were changed to ‘Rented: other social’. Other council areas had partial housing stock transfers however, it was not possible to ascertain from the reported results those who answered the tenure question incorrectly. The numbers of incorrect answers in these council areas was believed to be much lower as only partial transfers had taken place, hence only the council areas seeing full stock transfers had their data amended. Further details on the analysis described above are provided in a separate paper published on the Scottish Government website. See: 2011 Census Housing Tenure Data: Quality Assurance

This derived variable combines information from Questions 8 and 9 on the Census form.

Total number of categories 11

Not applicable category (X) comprises: All household spaces with no residents.