have you given up your assured tenancy and gone private?

kate252

wanting to hear from anyone who has given up their assured tenancy with a housing association and has moved into private rental- regretted it or not?
i have been assured tenant for 14 years and last eight of those i ahve had harrassment from neighbours- i cant swap as im in rent arrears , cat get transfer as they have changed systems without me knowing (or opening the letter thinking it was council tax bill repeat as they ahd same stamp on) and they ahve started me off as if ive only been waiting for transfer since 2008- when infact ive been needing to move since 2001. and anyway so many people are bidding for very few houses- and whats the chance that i get stuck with more messy, noisy, anti social people? maybe ive just had a bad experience in this estate and im sure not every social housing tenant is a nightmare!- but i have had really bad experience in this one with bullying, taunting, harrassment vandalism, and its brought us to the brink.
has anyone else surrendered their assuredc tenancy and regretted it?
has anyone done it and had a better quality of life?
i know its a stress having to move about- but what ive had over last few years hasnt been good either. and trust me- to warrant giving up your assured life long tenancy whcih is now like gold dust to get its got to be quite bad

kate252

also can i just add- the rent arrears was a housing benefit overpayment whcih they took back from housing !!!, future rent payments instead of deducting it from my benefits on a weekly basis- i dont know why i didnt get them to do that- i can only pay it off in ten pounds weekly amounts- and i wont be able to pay it off by the summer.

delain

Friends of mine moved into a nice bungalow and then it started to fall down and because they were on HB they ended up having to relocate 12 miles away and all their kids had to change schools.

That said, I live in a private house, have a great LL who is happy for me to stay as long as i want.

Be prepared for your rent to more than double though.

BitterAndTwisted

I wouldn't countenance it. The prospect of having to move at regular intervals fills me with dread and reading about some private landlords on here makes my hair stand on end.

I think what you really need to do is to get stuck in and address the situation with your HA about your anti-social neighbours. I'm a LA tenant, not an HA one but all of our tenancy agreements include clauses about anti-social behaviour and harrassment which can result in eviction with no further entitlement to housing FOR LIFE.

dizziblonde

Private landlords are hit and miss - I've always rented privately and have had some good, some bad and an utter gem whose flat I rented for over four years and would have been happy to rent for much much longer but for the fact we a) needed somewhere bigger, and b) storage heaters are the work of Satan.

If you get bad ones yes, it's a succession of year long tenancys and wondering if you're going to be able to get a renewal, if you get a good one - repairs get done quickly, preventative stuff gets done on a rolling rota, you know he rents the properties as an on-going investment so there's minimal problem. Our current one is a nightmare - it's what I mentally refer to as a "credit crunch house" (translation he can't sell it... at least in part because of the shocking nature of some of the DIY he's done to the place) and he's a rank amateur with no clue to obligations etc, and we've got the on-going uncertainty (the initial year contract has now run its course and gone onto a rolling countract) of when he's going to decide to chance the upturn in the property market and go for getting the place back and a sale - while it's not a massive factor for us in that we're sick to death of some of his shoddy repairs and would appreciate floorboards that aren't falling through and are keeping a loose and leisurely eye out for somewhere new... it's still at the back of your mind in terms of feeling settled somewhere.

Private rental though allows me so much more control in where we live - which is the key factor for us really. Means we can live in a part of town we'd never be able to afford to buy in - location and feeling safe in my house matters a tonne to me, there are no roaming bands of hoodies or anything around here, the neighbours talk to each other and the guy opposite keeps an eye on our house when we're out at work or away on holiday.

hotpot1000

You have to shop around for a landlord who wants what you want, I let to a family who were in a council place, they wanted out when the council opened some youth centre next door.
The tenant double checked with me that I wanted a long let when we initailly met, I have no intention to ever live in the house that I let.
They love it now theyve moved, more peaceful life, etc.

and I can also sympathise with you re: anti social neighbours, it really impacts on your quality of life

good luck with everything

poppysarah

You've got more chance of nuisance neighbours being sorted out with a HA or LA than private.

honeyD

I understand how you feel
Myself and my Husband are comtemplating doing this because of antisocial behaviour we have had for the last 7 years. I hate that I am being made to feel like I am being forced from a secure tenancy onto an unsure one and I really dont like the idea of it at all but we need to get out. Ive actually also just filled in a form to see about a house swap but since we have eggs and mud all over our windows I doubt anyone will want to swap once they see the outside of the house!
I also hate that if I do get a swap Im putting someone else in this position, but I feel I cant worry about others anymore because its been detrimental to my health for many years and Im just starting to feel like my head is above the water so to speak.
I wish you all the luck in the world, its not a nice thing to have to live with at all.

BitterAndTwisted

You harassed LA/HA tenants: what steps have you taken to get your landlords and neighbours on board with the problems you've been having? The suicide of that poor woman last year, the one who killed her daughter with learning difficulties with her, has made an awful lot of LA and HA housing departments sit up and take notice.

honeyD

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

You harassed LA/HA tenants: what steps have you taken to get your landlords and neighbours on board with the problems you've been having? The suicide of that poor woman last year, the one who killed her daughter with learning difficulties with her, has made an awful lot of LA and HA housing departments sit up and take notice.

Our HA have been involved since the beginning but then it was my parents house and my Mum got sick of filling out the incident log sheets. Since we took over the house in October 08 I have been filling the sheets out every week, I have logs saved on my computer which I print out and take over also.
Up until a couple of months ago I have kept being told by HA they cant do anything because I have no names. So I have found out some names via very sneaky methods lol, and handed them over yet its still not enough. In the end I have now got the borough council involved too though I have only heard from them once and they said something about an antisocial behaviour contract that some of the troublemakers would be called in to speak about but even since then its been ongoing. I notify the police, Ive had them visit the house numberous times to talk over the problems with them, they say they will talk to my HA but as of 2 days ago HA have no record of any police speaking about issues.
I went to the HA a couple of days ago to see someone about getting moved and was told by the people I spoke to that if I want to move I have to sort that myself. The guy even went as far as to insinuate that I am lying and because I dont phone the police every single time something is thrown at my windows "its not good enough". One day I had things thrown 18 times.. Im not going to phone the police all day! Where would I get the money to do that anyway!:mad:
He said on my list there could be 50 incidents but I only phoned the police for say 5, so 45 are just pretty much nothing and wont count. I was also told that writing in the log "group of x number of people" is not good enough, though how I am supposed to see who they are when they all wear dark tracksuits.. well.. I dont know!

The goalposts keep being moved and I told them I just cant take living here anymore but they wont listen, to say they are useless would be an understatement.

Jowo_2

I lived in social housing surrounded by junkies, alcoholics, prostitutes, those with poor mental health, and chavs, including a noisy aggressive neighbour who would play his music loud (for days - he would leave it on when he went away to 'deter' burglars...).

I had to give it up when I got a job in London and the local councils there wouldn't accept me as a tenant.

I ended up as a lodger in a cold damp house where the other unsociable lodgers were dirty in the kitchen, then as a lodger with a sweet lady owner and an annoying Phd student. I missed the privacy, being able to have friends over, having to share amenities. Eventually I saved up for a deposit and bought a place.

Think long and hard about giving up the security of tenure and low rent you may not appreciate until its lost. Private rent is a trap - those on housing benefit can rarely earn sufficient to make it worth them taking on a job or being able to save.

Despite my horrible neighbours and the ugly block, I loved my council flat.

Pay off your arrears and put in for a transfer and tackle the anti-social behaviour through the right channels.