Can Council kick me out?

squinty

This advice assumes you are in England. There are different rules in Scotland.

Whilst you mum is living at home, she remains a secure tenant - and as long as she keeps to other conditions of tenancy she can remain there.

However, the problems arise should mum die or need residential care.

As others have said there can only be one succession to a secure tenancy - and this was used when the tenancy passed from dad to mum.

The council cannot allow another succession. Neither can they allow the tenancy to be assigned from mum to the OP or another child. The bit that Firefox has posted earlier in the thread is a bit misleading - the council cannot make the OP or another family member joiint tenant - but they may end mothers tenancy and start another tenancy for the children (either jointly, or in the name of one child) - However, this is discretionary and this is unlikley if there is high demand for properties in the area.

There is a potential other difficulty here that if the coucil did offer a joint tenancy to two or more children, and one wanted to leave at a later date, they could onlydo this by ending the tenancy on behalf of all joint tenants

Note: that under the localism act the rules of succession have changed for new tenants, and unless the tenancy specifically says otherwise- and future succession can only be to a spouse or civil partner.

If the Council will not grant a new tenancy to one or more of the children what will happen? Lighting up the Chalice is wrong in what they say. If mum dies, the tenancy does not end, but it does cease to become a secure tenancy. The Council may end the tenancy by serving a Notice to Quit on the Property (perhaps also on the Public Trustee). You would NOT become a tolerated trespasser (a tolerated trespasser is something quite different, but the legislation has changed to avoid this now) but the Council may allow you to remain for a short time - and charge mesne profit for the use and occupation -to allow you find alternative accommodation.

You could apply to the Council as homeless - if you do need to do this, all the children should apply as one household. The council will carry our thier investigation they will look at a number of tests - you MAY be considered as vulnerable. The test for vulnerability is tough - a member of the household needs to be more vulnerable than the average homeless person. The OP says they have menetal health issues - this are notoriously difficult to assess against this standard. It is up to the Council to make this assessment - and although they may look at evidence from the GP or CPN etc - it is only the Council who decide.

Another factor the Council will consider is intentionality (ie has the applicant done anything that has contributed to their homlessness of failed to do something that would prevent homelessness). It is therefore important that the OP and the rest of the family do not do anything that outs the tenancy at risk.

I agree with what others have said. The OP should apply to the Council for rehousing - at very least this is a 'foot in the door'. However, the OP expresses his/her wish to be rehoused as a family unit. Any application should be for the family, and not as individuals. This could also help should the family need to apply a homeless at a later date - it could be difficult to argue that you are all memebers of one household who need to be together, if individuals apply for thier own accommodation beforehand

Sorry this is a long post - but it is complicated situation

ismmoh

My sister applied with my mum and they accpeted us on the right to buy scheme.

we didnt go ahead with it in the end though.

But this time my sister applied they are saying that my mums over 60 and she cant get the house, even though my sister works full time and will be paying most of it.

Is there any exemptions allowing an over 60 to buy their home.

regards

Mo

BitterAndTwisted

The one exemption is that the person who is the named tenant and is over 60 is that they exercise the Right To Buy by paying cash for the property. I suspect the Council have said that your Mum can't buy it because she's too old to raise a mortgage in her own name for the purchase and I can't see a way around that unless one/all of you gift her the funds to buy it outright

cvt1

The issue with the OP's situation is that there will be no succession. I work for one of those organisations, which provide specialist housing legal advice. The local authorities where I am based, will rehouse as far as possible in cases such as yours, because of the risk of homelessness. Recent moves in legislation focus on homeless prevention now, not homelessness because of benefit cuts and welfare reform and also, because of lack of social housing .

In the case of the OP the authority is not likely to consider intentionality, because the tenancy would be lost through death of the succeeded tenant.

If you apply as homeless, the authority must take into account those who would be reasonably expected to live with you. If your siblings can have their own tenancies, the authority may well expect this.

In my area, authorities enjoy wriggling out of their responsibilities if they can, apply blanket policies and fetter their discretion.

Please go to Shelter and get some proper advice, relevant to your individual circumstances.

BurnleyBob

This is a recent news story about two brothers who are in a similar conundrum after their parents died. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227218/We-moved-Two-brothers-family-lived-council-house-73-years-battle-stop-eviction.html

There's miles of case law concerning social housing tenancy succession rules. If the OP's mother died then their LA would have no legal problems evicting them.

The age of OP's mother wouldn't proscribe her from purchasing the property in her name under the right-to-buy scheme. Although, as others' have stated, with her being over 60 she'd have a huge task to raise a mortgage from mainstream lenders.

Someone else could supply a cheque for the full amount to the vendor on her behalf. Or gift the money to her so she could write it. However, the latter option could raise deprivation of capital issues if she's in receipt of means-tested benefits whereas the former wouldn't as the dough would never be in her possession.

Mojisola

BurnleyBob wrote: »

Someone else could supply a cheque for the full amount to the vendor on her behalf. Or gift the money to her so she could write it. However, the latter option could raise deprivation of capital issues if she's in receipt of means-tested benefits whereas the former wouldn't as the dough would never be in her possession.

But the house would be in the mother's name and, if she needed care in the future, the house would normally have to be sold to pay for it which would leave the "children" homeless and without the money paid for the house.

teajug

BurnleyBob wrote: »

This is a recent news story about two brothers who are in a similar conundrum after their parents died. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227218/We-moved-Two-brothers-family-lived-council-house-73-years-battle-stop-eviction.html

There's miles of case law concerning social housing tenancy succession rules. If the OP's mother died then their LA would have no legal problems evicting them.

The age of OP's mother wouldn't proscribe her from purchasing the property in her name under the right-to-buy scheme. Although, as others' have stated, with her being over 60 she'd have a huge task to raise a mortgage from mainstream lenders.

Someone else could supply a cheque for the full amount to the vendor on her behalf. Or gift the money to her so she could write it. However, the latter option could raise deprivation of capital issues if she's in receipt of means-tested benefits whereas the former wouldn't as the dough would never be in her possession.

Did the OP not say that her sister would pay the mortgage and I thought that would be possible if the sister was a guarantor for the mortgage. Perhaps someone with more knowledge would post if this is possible.

custardy

missile wrote: »

Did council say they would evict?

It makes no sense (to me) for them to evict you into to seperate houses and I don't see why they would as you + 3 sisters, would seem to require 4 bedrooms.

I note you have mental health issues and sister is disabled. Perhaps your doctor and occupation health nurse can assist you?

It makes sense to a family needing a 4 bedroom house