The Queen will be urged by city council tenants to change a piece of “bad law” they claim blights the lives of thousands of people across the country.

Three dozen of Brighton and Hove’s elected housing representatives will address Her Majesty about a sub-clause in housing succession law.

The Government’s Housing Act, which was passed in 1985, states possession of council houses can only be transferred between family members once.

But the tenants are hoping to change the “iniquitous clause” which sees children who have given up their home to care for their surviving elderly parent effectively turfed out onto the streets.

It follows the case of Graham Burgess who was told by Brighton and Hove City Council to leave the property he called home since 1957.

The local authority claims legal possession of his home was passed from his mother to his father when she died in 1982.

This meant when Mr Burgess’s father died in 2008 a further transfer was against the rules.

In February the city council gave him six months to leave the two-bedroom property claiming it was under occupied.

The petition states: “How is it possible the surviving parent can be deemed to succeed to something that he/she already possessed?

“We hope a small adjustment will remove the uncertainty and distress from many of Your Majesty’s loyal subjects.”

Tenant representative Stewart Gover said: “If successful in changing this bad law, it is something the city of Brighton and Hove will have its name on.”

The succession law was questioned by the Law Commission in 2001 but a draft bill to alter the clause was dismissed by the Government in 2005.

The petition will be sent to the Queen before a local Member of Parliament will present it to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

A council spokesman said: “The effects of a rule change would depend on what that rule change would be. If it allowed a second succession it would mean many properties remain unavailable for allocation as they would be passed on according to the new rules.”

A spokesman for Buckingham Palace confirmed the Queen read every single piece of correspondence received.

He added it would then be passed on to the relevant Government department.