House being Repossessed,what are our rights?

tallcat

Hi
We've owned our house for 6 years,last year my partner was made redundant for 3 months and missed 3 payments,after that he started working and continued paying extra every months to cover it.
Everything was fine,we have a family,3 small children and a baby on the way. Few months ago he was made redundant AGAIN and missed another 2 payments. They are demanding a lot of money from us which we don't have,and have taken us to court and we made peace with the fact that our house is going to be repossessed very,very soon.
I have spoken to EVERYONE about advice,so i know roughly what we can and can not do. Council took an application form from us and they are going to put us on a waiting list,but until we get an exact date of when locks will be changed (eviction day) obviously we are not priority.
We should get this letter within the next few days (mortgage company adviser told us today) and i roughly 3 weeks after that is eviction date.

We will be staying with my brother,my mum lives there as well. It's a 2 bedroom appt. and obviously me,my partner and children will sleep in the living room because there isn't many suitable combinations for sleeping due to my mum not being able to share with my brother,or my partner and so on and so on ..

Anyway,what i wanted to know is,are we going to be classed as homeless as soon as we get our date for eviction,and because they said we would be high priority need,how long can we wait for a house roughly?
We can't rent privately,so will be staying with family until everything gets sorted out.

hope someone can help.

RAS

Only your council can answer your question. You may well be in a hostel or B&B. But that depends on the area.

tallcat

Thanks for your reply. They asked if we had somewhere to go and we agreed we would go to my mums and my brothers flat,until either they find a property for us or we start renting. (one my partner goes back to work)

RAS

tallcat wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. They asked if we had somewhere to go and we agreed we would go to my mums and my brothers flat,until either they find a property for us or we start renting. (one my partner goes back to work)

In which case you will not be homeless and will not be priority, will you?

GDB2222

tallcat wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. They asked if we had somewhere to go and we agreed we would go to my mums and my brothers flat,until either they find a property for us or we start renting. (one my partner goes back to work)

I don't think this was wise. The four of you camping in your brother's living room is not going to work for very long. I'd go back to the council and tell them that your brother won't take you after all.

antrobus

RAS wrote: »

In which case you will not be homeless and will not be priority, will you?

To be homeless you don't literally have to be sleeping underneath the railway bridges. Under the Housing Act 1996 you are homeless if you don't have any accomodation that you are entitled to occupy or that it would be unreasonable for you to continue occupying. OP might well qualify under either of these criteria.

See the following explanation;
http://www.crisis.org.uk/policywatch/pages/legal_definition_of_homelessness.html

tallcat

Thanks again guys.

They said we would be class as homeless as soon as we show them eviction date,even though we will be staying in my brothers flat,it's not OURS and it's temporary. I didn't think there was another choice?

I went to council today to hand my forms in,and again they have said we can start bidding as soon as the form gets accepted but we wil bel low on the list UNTIL the defininate date of baillifs coming to change locks,and then we get priority (what does it mean anyway? i thought they had different BANDS now?)

BitterAndTwisted

They do have different bands. You will be on one (low) band while you are still occupying your property but will ascend to a higher band once you have the firm eviction date in writing.

SAMMYE_2

Look a two bedroomed apartment is just not suitable for all of you! Say your brother cannot accomodate you, which he can't! Then you will be high priority.

p.s. really sorry to hear about your situation. It really sucks. Lots of people have found themselves and are finding themselves in similar situations and I'm sure all will work out really nicely for you. :-)

cabbage

if you are living at your brothers then unfortunately you wouldn't be classed as homeless under homeless legislation.

You can apply for housing under the homelessness legislation when you have 28 days or less before you leave your property. With your situation, you should be able to put in an application 28 days before the eviction day. There are 5 tests of homelessness. If you pass the first two (resident in UK, homeless or threatened with homelessness) you will then go onto test 3 which is are you in priority need. With kids you would be classed as in priority need. At this point the local authority will provide interim housing while they put your application form through the last 2 tests for homelessness. If you "pass" all five the local authority has a duty to house you.

If you go to live at your brothers, technically you have somewhere to stay and wouldn't come under the homelessness legislation unless he chucked you out because it was too crowded then you could make the application under homelessness legislation as above.

The other thing you could do is look for private rented accommodation. The LA (Local Authority) often have a scheme to provide you with a rent deposit as this would prevent you applying as a homeless person (ie if you could rent but couldn't afford the deposit you might put in an application under homelessness legislation). You could then claim for Housing Benefit to help with your rent and Council Tax Benefit for help with council tax. For privately rented property you may find there is a shortfall between your benefit and actual rent which you will have to find yourself. There is a thing called discretionary housing payments that could possibly help out with the shortfall but its not guaranteed your application will be accepted.

The best thing to do is either ring Shelter or make an appt at CAB to go through your options, the five tests for homelessness etc. If you will have a shortfall between what the house will sell for and the mortgage outstanding, CAB can also help with this as debt issue.

Good luck

cabbage

Ohh sorry, forgot to mention that CAB works with the LA and can be link to obtaining help under the various mortgage rescue schemes. There are funds to prevent repossession and schemes such us a housing association buying your property and you renting it back. There are lots of options out there but you need some professional advice. Once you have more than one option (ie repossession) you will feel a bit better in this awful situation.