evicted but not on the tenancy

tanith

A friend has been made homeless and needs help , he split from his partner who left the house they were in and the landlord then changed the locks effectively making him homeless.. on enquiring how the landlord could do this legally it appears that he (friend) was never on the tenancy agreement and was living there with the tenants permission only . The trouble is the council are refusing to help as they say he should of stayed in the house and been given notice of eviction which they require to give him emergency accomodation... can anyone give me some advice here.. I will advise he goes to CAB but just want to give some hope here.He is at present sleeping on the floor of a family member but this is very temporary.....thanks

silvercar

Its not the landlord's fault. the tenant informs landlord she is leaving so he takes possession. Sounds like the girlfriend is bitter, she could have told the landlord her ex would want to continue the tenancy.

Council rules are upto them but I would suggest your friend goes back to the council and paints the picture again. Maybe better describing it as the girl friend threw him out (effectively she did) and he has nowhere to live.

I suspect if they think they have a duty to house it will be in a hostel or B&B as emergency accomodation.

tanith

Thanks Silvercar , we have already done this but he needs to be a priority case to get emergency accomadation and they do not consider he is.. although he cannot work because of his health and drink problems... He would be very grateful for any emergency accommadation whilst he tries to get himself together... It just seems that everybody just fobs you onto another agency/dept and no one actually DOES anything to help.... they just say we are not responsible.. we are going to try a charity hostel ... fingers crossed...

By the way the landlord just happened to be the partners son....:eek: but thats a whole other story...

thanks

clutton_2

the council will in all probability not rehouse him as he has "made himself voluntarily homeless" - ie he has not been thrown out of a rented property via a court order. SHELTER is the best place to go ..... good luck. I know that they have in the past forced councils to house families - but single people - sadly a whole different ball game.

Topsy1_2

He hasn't been made "voluntarily homeless" because he wasn't a tenant in the first place. He couldn't be evicted by a possession order because there was no tenancy on which to serve a possession order in the first place. I agree with Silvercar - better to go back to the council and explain the situation as him being thrown out, which effectively he has. Local authorities/social housing providers do have an obligation to provide temporary accommodation - eg, hostel etc, but he may find he has to wait a long time to be given a permanant bedsit or 1 bed flat.

However, if he has problems with health and drink, he could argue that he be classed as "vulnerable", in which case he will lever himself up the priority list. Is it possible for him to have some kind of assessment from a GP to back up the "vulnerable" claim??