Adults living with their parents, other relatives or friends in accommodation where neither they nor their partner are the owner or renter of that accommodation - i.e. concealed households - and where at least one of the adults does not have their own bedroom.

The accommodation is insecure because such people have no legal rights to stay in their accommodation, with their ability to stay there depending on the views of the owner/renter (something which may well be problematic given the overcrowded nature of the accommodation).

The accommodation is inadequate because at least one of the adults (presumably usually those who are not the owner/renter) does not have a bedroom of their own.

Note that overcrowding is explicitly part of the legal definition of homelessness in Scotland if it may endanger the health of the occupants.

Depends on both age and who they are living with, with it being assumed that the risk is:

• High if aged 25 or over living with non-relatives
• Medium if aged 25 or over living with relatives
• Medium if aged 16-24 living with non-relatives
• Low if aged 16-24 living with relatives

Housing Act 1996 Part VII s.175; Housing Act 1985 Part X s.358-364

The situation is regarded as less satisfactory for those aged 25 and over than for those aged 16-24.  This is on the grounds that the vast majority of those aged 25 and over have reached a settled living arrangement, whereas those aged 24 and below are often still in the period of transition from dependent to independent living.

At any one time, around 500,000 adults, of whom around 190,000 are aged 25 or over.  The estimated numbers are similar over the period of a year.^[1]

At any point in time, there are around 4.3 million adults aged 16 and over in England living in ‘concealed households' - people who do not own or rent a property, do not belong to a tenancy group, are neither the head of the household nor the spouse/partner of the head of the household, and are not considered to be dependent children.

Of these, around 430,000 live in overcrowded conditions (i.e. the housing is below the bedroom standard).  Note that, in principle, boyfriends/girlfriends are excluded from these figures as they would be considered to be partners of the relevant head of household.Note that, of these 430,000, the vast majority (380,000) do not have dependent children and, furthermore, that the vast majority are living with relatives rather than friends.

Of the 430,000, 265,000 are aged 16 to 24 and the other 160,000 are aged 25 or over.  Scaling up these English figures to Great Britain gives around 310,000 aged 16 to 24 and 190,000 aged 25 or over. 

Survey of English Housing, averaging over the years 2003/04 to 2005/06

Adequacy of the calculation

Medium - the estimated numbers are considered to be reasonably robust but the security or otherwise of the housing will depend on individual circumstances and cannot be determined from the survey data.