Advice gratefully appreciated. Potential homelessness

Kaleidoscope1972

I cant beleive Im having to post again about our housing situation..I must be the unluckiest person around:(

In May 2009..due to a crippling mortgage and escalating debts we sold our home to clear debts..we were very unhappy to do so but the advice we received at the time pointed to that being the only soloution..we were told bankruptcy was not an option as we had assets.

We moved in a private rental property which we were assured by the management company was long term as LL was in Dubai on a permanent contract. We took out a 12 month AST which was due to expire end of April this year.

We had a lot of problems with the property inc no central heating for weeks and LL had his post and parcels constantly delivered to the property, we also discovered he did not have permission from his mortgage company to let the house.

In Oct he turned up on our doorstep announcing he was back from Dubai, therefore as I was pregnant and due to give birth at the end of April, we negotiated an early end to the tenancy..many will remember that the LL gave us a lot of trouble and also attempted to hold on to out deposit but after 4 months we got this returned.

In January, we moved into a house belonging to my husbands place of work.this had been let for a number of years and had a covenent stating it must always belong with the garden centre (my husbands place of work), we were releived to rent a house where we felt we had security at last..the LL is a large chain with its head office in Scotland so we mainly dealt with the management company although sometimes my husband spoke direct with head office as they employed him.
Our six month tenancy ran out in June and we renewed for another 6 months..During the time Ive lived here we have had our baby girl and also had our 9 year old diagnosed with autism which means stability is important to him.
Today we were told that the property is being sold:(.. we have only been here for 8 months..it seems that all along they intended to sell and have applied to have the covenent lifted..today we had to show no less than 4 estate agents round..on my birthday and have been told the house will be on the market within the next 2 weeks.

We are devastated..my 9 year old is beside himself as he cant cope with change..we were looking forward to our baby's first christmas as last year we were surrounded by packing boxes...our tenancy runs out at the beginning of December and weve been told we will be expected to leave at that point
we are facing the possibility of being homeless just before christmas..we have no money for a deposit or rent as due to having 5 children we have to rent at least a 4 bed house and deposits are in the region of £1000..plus a months rent in advance..

I need to know what we should do now? I phoned my local housing dept and was told its all run by housing assc now and that all we can do is present to them 28 days before we will have to move out and they will place us in a hostel:(..I am beside myself at the moment and I dont know what to do..does any one know if its possible to apply for help with deposits etc when renting privately as the lady I spoke to today said its possible that you can stay in a hostel for up to 2 years..and I cannot do that to my 5 children.

to be honest I cant beleive that we are in this situation..I feel incredibly scared and unhappy

theartfullodger

Sorry to read your story: Hope it gets better.

Don't let the b******s get you down: Keep smiling & keep yr. chin up!

The excellent charity Shelter & it's wonderful website has this....

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/homelessness

Call them on 0808 8000 4444 but they are a charity, resource & staff are tight so you may have a long wait for an answer.

Best wishes & thinking of you..


Lodger

Trollfever

I phoned my local housing dept and was told its all run by housing assc now

Get back to them and make sure that you are on the housing list.

Kaleidoscope1972

Trollfever wrote: »

Get back to them and make sure that you are on the housing list.

its not as easy as that sadly..we cannot go on the list until our section 21 is served and sadly we may not meet the criteria..we are under the welsh assembley

Trollfever

This is the Welsh Shelter site:

http://www.sheltercymru.org.uk/home/default.aspx

top_drawer_2

bump bump bump

Poor women, cant believe she only has four replies.

Kaleidoscope1972

Thanks Top drawer..

girleight@

Hi

If you have any workers involved with your son like surestart or a children's centre or something you could try and ask if they will do a CAF. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/strategy/deliveringservices1/caf/cafframework/
Now I don't actually work with young children but the CAF gets a lot of different professionals together and there is a discretionary budget which they could maybe use for a deposit for you? They could also get housing involved as it is all important to the welfare of your kids.

jmorris

I would find out who your local MP is and get an appointment with them ASAP. They are often brilliant. Your local councillor should help too. Probably wouldn't do any harm to contact CAB either - although you are a better man than I am Gunga Din, if you can get an appt. with them. If you don't get anywhere with these organisations, then I would contact your local newspapers with the story in the hope of shaming the council into providing you with a house. A family of 7 should I would have thought be housed immediately your lease expires.

I am so sorry, I wish I could help you personally but I can't. It is a very hard world to bring children into, so I would suggest that you ask your husband to have the "snip". Having five children without the resources to provide them with a decent home and future is very irresponsible.

Kaleidoscope1972

jmorris wrote: »

I would find out who your local MP is and get an appointment with them ASAP. They are often brilliant. Your local councillor should help too. Probably wouldn't do any harm to contact CAB either - although you are a better man than I am Gunga Din, if you can get an appt. with them. If you don't get anywhere with these organisations, then I would contact your local newspapers with the story in the hope of shaming the council into providing you with a house. A family of 7 should I would have thought be housed immediately your lease expires.

I am so sorry, I wish I could help you personally but I can't. It is a very hard world to bring children into, so I would suggest that you ask your husband to have the "snip". Having five children without the resources to provide them with a decent home and future is very irresponsible.

I beg your pardon?? how dare you:mad:..my children are very widely spread out in age..the eldest is 20 and would point out that I run my own business and my husband is a shop manager..we have never had benefits and owned our own home until last May..our debt problems arose because after having my 6 year old daughter I had a stroke and we had to borrow money left right and centre to get me the appropriate treatment..hence selling our home...once we had moved house and cleared our debts we felt secure enough to have another child..or is it against the law to have a child whilst privately renting?:mad:

the reason we dont have our deposit or months rent in advance is because we have only lived in this property for 8 months and simply were not expecting to be asked to move..the property is owned by my husbands employers and we were assured a long term let..

I am positive ly gobsmacked at your bigoted and unpleasent response

Kaleidoscope1972

girleight@ wrote: »

Hi

If you have any workers involved with your son like surestart or a children's centre or something you could try and ask if they will do a CAF. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/strategy/deliveringservices1/caf/cafframework/
Now I don't actually work with young children but the CAF gets a lot of different professionals together and there is a discretionary budget which they could maybe use for a deposit for you? They could also get housing involved as it is all important to the welfare of your kids.

no we dont have any involvement with agencies like that..he has aspergers and is very high functioning...thank you for the information