Q's re Council assistance in PRT Notices from 7 days notice to leave thread

Alleycat

TASSOTI

With regards to the council issue, how come they have no properties if you make yourself intentionally homeless, but, if you are evicted, suddenly housing becomes available

Hi,

Social housing i.e. council, housing trust housing is available to everyone regardless of their circumstances, but there tends to be extremely heavy demand. If the OP's sister did make herself 'intentionally homeless' by leaving the property before she legally had to then she could still apply for housing, but would face a very long wait. The local authority would also have no statutory duty to provide her with temporary accommodation.

Basically when someone is faced with or is currently homeless, they can present at their local Homeless Advice Unit and make an Homeless application. Details are taken by a Homelessness Officer and an investigation is carried out. If it is found that someone is not homeless or is intentionally homeless then they would not be eligible for assistance with rehousing such as priority status on the housing list and the provision of temporary accommodation if necessary.This isn't to say that they will get no help, just that if there is no temporary accommodation available when they present, there is no legal duty to provide it. Provision of priority and/or temp would also depend on the person's circumstances i.e. do they fit into a priority category. Basically if they are pregnant, have children, are under 18 years old, have a significant medical or mental health issue, have potentially been institutionalised by spending a major proportion of their lives in the forces/prison/children's homes they could fall into one of the priority need categories.

TASSOTI

Back to the council thing again.

Does the tenant actually have to wait until court proceedings are started before they get council housing? Or even wait until ballifs show up?

If so, then the council are insisting that the tenant gets a CCJ against their name. This could be very detrimental to credit scoring.

As I understand it, the tenant would only get a CCJ against them if they had done something to instigate possession of the property, i.e. non payment of rent. In that instance there would be an issue of intentionality.

There are different procedures depending on the Local Authority that a person presents at. It isn't a given that the Local Authority will force someone to remain in their tenancy right up until the bailiffs come knocking.

For example where I work, we will get involved as soon as the tenant is issued with a Notice To Quit. We can attempt to negotiate with the Landlord if there has been a dispute such as if there are rent arrears. We will advise the client of their responsibilities regarding the rent, if there are holdups with their Housing Benefit we can push the department to get the claim sorted asap as the tenant is being threatened with eviction. If there is an affordability issue, we will signpost the client to CAB or other specialised advice agency, complete a financial statement, assist the client in applying for concessionary Housing Benefit etc. Our aim where possible is to prevent homelessness not exacerbate the problem and if we can identify a problem that can be resolved without the need for eviction we will. During this time, we will be investigating the person's homeless application and looking at a) is the person eligible for assistance i.e. has stay in the UK; b)is there an issue of homelessness; c) is the person in a priority need category; d) has the person made themselves intentionally homeless.

Edit to add:- Just because someone presents with an eviction notice due to rent arrears, it doesn't automatically mean that they will be found to be intentionally homeless. A financial statement will be completed and a Homelessness Officer can look at it under affordability. There may be genuine reasons why someone is struggling, i.e. sudden job loss, rent hike etc.

At the end of the day there are a variety of reasons why Homeless Advice Unit's are having to advise clients not to vacate prior to court proceedings. There may be issues with the reasons for possession, i.e. the landlord is saying that there are 8 weeks rent arrears and is applying for accelerated possession, so if the tenant is able to bring the arrears to below this figure then the possession proceedings are no longer valid and the landlord would have to start again. This would buy the client time to either sort out their rent payments or find alternative accommodation. It could be a contrived Notice i.e. the tenant has asked the Landlord to serve them with Notice in order to get priority for rehousing, the tenant and landlord could be related/friends and again be trying to get the tenant priority to be rehoused. We have found in our area, that a lot of eviction notices were contrived. By forcing the Landlord's hand with the legalities of eviction it has cut down on the number of false homeless applications.

There is also a massive shortfall of social housing and it is only going to get worse. There are an increasing amount of people seeking social housing due to being unable to get onto the property ladder and having been stung too many times by unscrupulous landlords. There is also the right to buy brigade who want a council house with the sole intention of buying it as soon as they are able.

Tassotti

I understand the reasoning behind the advice to stay until court proceedings are brought, but this is totally unfair on LLs who just wan't their property back.

Court proceedings cost money. I, too, am not sure about the regards to CCJs. However, if a court has ordered a tenant to leave (arrears or not), it is still a court judgement against the tenant, and, in my opinion, the court costs will be passed onto the tenant.

lowis

There is also the right to buy brigade who want a council house with the sole intention of buying it as soon as they are able.

personally, i originally NEEDED a council house (not 'wanted', there is a difference) 14 years ago - i had absolutely no intention to buy it, in fact i am not even sure i was aware of RTB when I got the flat. 14 years later i am in a position to buy it and am doing so. if i wasn't buying it i would still be living in it and would probably do so until the day i die as i would be unable to afford a flat anywhere else in Islington and the surrounding areas (my home) so it would not be available for anyone else for (hopefully!) another 40-50 years.

due to the long waiting lists for council property i doubt very much if there is a 'Right To Buy brigade' that sit on waiting lists for years on end waiting for a flat. And if there is a Right To Buy brigade then they have a bit of a shock coming to them - the discounts have been slashed, so in a lot of areas RTB is actually redundant and no longer works. For example, a 1 bed council flat (street property) in islington could be worth anything between 200k and 280k. The maximum discount available in Islington is now about £16k - the flat would still be unaffordable to most tenants. Even a flat in a tower block is out of reach to the average wage earner - I managed to apply for mine before the discounts were slashed.

personally i blame the Tories - they should have introduced a programme to replace the houses pruchased under RTB.

Alleycat

Wow, chill lowis!! I can assure you that there definately is still a lot of people who do sit on the waiting list with the sole intention of buying as soon as they can the property. A lot still believe that there is a good discount and even when they are informed that it is a lot smaller, it doesn't deter them. The amount of people who say that they will not consider private renting as they want a council house so they can buy it. No-one is getting at people who have bought their council house/flat after living in it for a while, however it has proved to be a serious drain on housing stock.

Tassoti, I personally don't think it is unfair on Landlords to advise clients of their rights with regards to possession of the property. If a Landlord goes into buy to let blindly without teaching themselves the basics of housing law, then they only have themselves to blame. Like it, lump it or get out of the lettings game. May sound a bit harsh, but at the end of the day in my role as a Homelessness Officer, I will always advocate for the tenant.

lowis

i am very chilled alleycat - i just dislike this whole 'RTB brigade' attitude which lumps people like me with the small minority of people you are refering to. i agree that it is a serious drain on housing - the Tories should have planned for that though.

Alleycat

I don't want this thread to end up with lots of sniping, so I'll just say this. I am not lumping all those who choose to buy their council property together. However it would be naive to ignore the very obvious group whose sole intention in getting a council property is to buy it as soon as possible. Dependant on where in the country you are, the proportion who do this is actually quite large.

Tassotti

Alleycat wrote:

Tassoti, I personally don't think it is unfair on Landlords to advise clients of their rights with regards to possession of the property. If a Landlord goes into buy to let blindly without teaching themselves the basics of housing law, then they only have themselves to blame. Like it, lump it or get out of the lettings game. May sound a bit harsh, but at the end of the day in my role as a Homelessness Officer, I will always advocate for the tenant.

What a load of nonsense. The tenant is given 2 months notice, then they should leave.

Most tenants abide by this and it is only when the tenant is influenced by the council that the LL is FORCED to go to court to regain possession of his/her property.

How is the tenant making themselves intentionally homeless when they have notice to leave the property?

lowis

well i live in london and the list are years long so not sure the 'brigade' would be that patient...i think it takes about 7 years to get a flat for someone with relatively few 'social' problems i.e. qualifying points, i may be wrong though. i am well aware that some prople 'work' the system though.

chugalug

Tassotti wrote:

What a load of nonsense. The tenant is given 2 months notice, then they should leave.

Most tenants abide by this and it is only when the tenant is influenced by the council that the LL is FORCED to go to court to regain possession of his/her property.

How is the tenant making themselves intentionally homeless when they have notice to leave the property?

Depends why the notice was given. Basically, because house prices are so high (and a lot of wages relatively low) a lot of people cannot afford to buy their own property. They then have to rent privately or apply for social housing.

Social housing (council and HA) cannot meet the increased demands placed on it for various reasons, so those that administer it ie local councils have to apply rationing strategies. These have always applied but, depending on how high the demand, were applied strictly or more loosely. Its now easier to get social housing in some parts of the country than in others so where there are more people in need the councils are stricter. They used to accept the NTQ as evidence that someone was about to become homeless and they would immediately become priority (if they had a priority need). Now, especially in the South, councils won't accept you are 'homeless' until you have the baillif's warrant meaning you have had to go through the whole possession procedure - not only running up debt in court costs but pi**ing of the landlord in the process.

Realistically, the only way to access social housing now is to not queue on the waiting list but be homeless because then you will become priority (providing you aren't intentionally homeless and meet all the other criteria Alleycat detailed).

The system has evolved that way because of the pressures on it not because everyone wants to give LL a hard time.

robwend

regarding buying council propertys blame the council for selliing em!, i didnt buy my council house instead they offerd me £23000 to give up my council house and buy on the open market which i gladly done!

Alleycat

Tassotti wrote:

What a load of nonsense. The tenant is given 2 months notice, then they should leave.

It is not a load of nonsense, it is the legal process. The landlord may want the tenant to vacate when the two month notice has expired, but they do not have to if they have not found alternative housing within this time.

Most tenants abide by this and it is only when the tenant is influenced by the council that the LL is FORCED to go to court to regain possession of his/her property.

Most tenants do not know their rights and can feel threatened and intimidated by the landlord and/or receiving a Notice to Quit. They may be lucky and have the funds to pay a new deposit and first month's rent and be able to secure a new property within two months. Plenty of others are not so lucky. There are also those who do not seek advice and vacate at the end of the notice period and move in with friends, making themselves homeless. Or they turn up on the doorstep of their Homeless Advice Unit needing temporary accommodation (we would not turn them away and would provide temp whilst investigating the case and possibly for longer).

I think the use of forced in caps is a bit strong. The Landlord is being expected to follow the legal procedure in evicting a tenant. Some may move out prior to court proceedings, others may not. It is part and parcel of being a Landlord.

How is the tenant making themselves intentionally homeless when they have notice to leave the property?

As explained previously, the tenant does not legally need to vacate the tenancy prior to a Possession Order being granted by the courts. If however they do this (and especially if they have been advised not to), they will be making themselves intentionally homeless. It may have been possible to secure alternative housing at some stage prior to a Bailiffs Warrant being executed, therefore meaning that the tenant does not have to be homeless, but if the tenant has already left the property then there would be a period of homelessness. Temporary accommodation does not grow on trees and most local authorities are under enormous pressure as it is. If we can prevent homelessness then that can only be a good thing. Preventing the upheaval and disruption that going into a hostel or other temp brings. One of my clients lost their job recently as their landlord had illegally evicted them and they had become homeless. Another single person who was not eligible for priority had to sleep in his car for two weeks as there were no vacancies at any of the hostels. Becoming homeless even for a short time can scare the pants off a grown adult but what about the 4, 7, 10 year old? Being shipped from pillar to post with stressed out parents.

I am well aware that not all tenants are as white as the driven snow, but there are plenty that become the victims through no fault of their own.