Please Help BIL - Homeless in 3 days

will1974

Please can anyone offer any advice, the situation is as follows;

Brother In Law is in a fair bit of debt and has been suffering from depression for the past year, it turns out he is in £3,500 arrears with his rent, (he rents privately) he is on housing benefit and Incapacity benefit. The Estate that he rents from have now given him 3 days to get out and served him with an eviction notice for Tuesday. He really has nowhere to go, what can he do, will he be homeless, should we contact the housing assocation? What happens if they do not have anywhere to house him? He also has his son every weekend, will the housing association take this into account? Does he have any tenants rights? Or can they literally just chuck him out in 3 days? Sorry for all the questions, just so worried for him and dont know where to turn. Thanks

lynzpower

if he is recieving Housing benefit is this not paid direct to the landlord? Or is he recieving the money himself and not paying the rent?

thesaint

What do you mean that he rents privately, but the "Estate" has given him three days? Has he got a tenancy or has he got a license?

will1974

By renting privately I mean that he is not a council tenant, he rents from an estate called Grimsthorpe Castle. He rents a 3 bed cottage through the Grimsthorpe Estate and as he is renting by himself, the housing benefit only pay a percentage of the rent, not the full amount. He is in so much debt that he has not been making up the shortfall of the rent that is left to pay, he has not opened any mail for 6 months!! And so the red letters and bailiff letters have been piling up all that time. We are beyond negotaiting with them due to the fact this has been ignored for 6 months, so they are evicting him on Tuesday. Sorry, hope this makes more sense.

Squiggly_Diddly

Am not sure of the legalities of who can do what (although as you say it may be beyond negotiation?) - does he have to go to Court on Tuesday or are baliffs coming to physically evict him? If he was going to Court, could you go with him & plead for an extension at least?? Otherwise I would suggest you could try contacting either the local council's homelessness officer - they may be obliged to advise him (but not necessarily house him) if he is classed as 'in need' or alternatively Shelter may be able to give you urgent advice. https://www.shelter.org.uk
Good luck.

Edit: Try Social Services as well, as the depression sounds quite serious, and he may therefore be entitled to an assessment & help from them.

tweetyshells

Is his eviction letter an actual court eviction or just the landlord/estate sending it?
If the latter then he has right to stay where he is until they get the court to evict him.
I would advise he contacts shelter asap.

Melissa177

Can you BIL come and live with you? Or live with a friend? I think it's clear he can't stay in the property, and owes a lot of money on it. I suspect social services will have to help.

It does annoy me that my hard-earnt money is taxed so much, which goes on supporting the fe*kless and idle.

poppy10_2

Yeah, I'd like to live in a 3-bed cottage rent-free, but unfortunately I am stupid enough to work for a living and so can only afford my tiny 1-bed flat.

Not got a great deal of sympathy I'm afraid, but the council's social services dept are the way to go; you may have to wait till he is physically homeless i.e. AFTER he has been evicted. Then the council will have a duty to provide him temporary accommodation.

Zingara

The Estate won't have given him 3 days to get out. There are a heck of a lot of court procedures that must be adhered to and a case must go to court first to get a possession order. Only then can it be referred for eviction. Once an account has been referred for eviction the bailiff will set the eviction date and will advise the tenant of it, usually two weeks in advance if memory serves me correctly. He will have known about this for a lot longer than 3 days, whether he admits to it or not.

If it is an eviction notice from the court then yes, a bailiff will turn up to the property and evict him. Even if he isn't there or chooses not to answer the door, the locks will be changed. If he causes trouble the police will be called.

If he hasn't already done so he does have a right of appeal in which he will need to put in an appeal at court and turn up for a hearing with a very good reason as to why he shouldn't be evicted and an ability to make payments of his rent plus and amount off his arrears.

If he presents himself as homeless the council may well see him as being "voluntarily homeless" i.e. it is his fault he has no home as he hasn't been paying his rent as he should have been doing. If they do see it this way then they are under no duty to rehome him. If they do rehome him it is likely to be in a hostel.

In all likelihood a housing association won't house him as they should always ask for references. Eviction when on housing benefit does not look good and it sounds as if he cannot sustain a tenancy.

He is in quite a sticky situation. His best option at this moment would be to contact Shelter urgently and seek their advice, or go to Citizens Advice Bureau.

Karen

peter999

Melissa177 wrote: »

It does annoy me that my hard-earnt money is taxed so much, which goes on supporting the fe*kless and idle.

poppy10 wrote: »

Yeah, I'd like to live in a 3-bed cottage rent-free, but unfortunately I am stupid enough to work for a living and so can only afford my tiny 1-bed flat.

Not got a great deal of sympathy I'm afraid,

Is that your nonsense pat answer you trot out for people in a problem ??

peter999

Melissa177

I appreciate that it's not particularly helpful, but I'm finding it difficult to have sympathy for idle/fe*kless types who I subsidise.

Would you reach in your pocket to help this man?

My advice would be not to rack up any more rent bills and move in with a friend or family. The man must be married, where does the wife figure in all this? Is she living elsewhere?