Evicted and now intentionally homeless

DottM

Hi,

I was looking for a little advice on how to help my sister move forward.

Essentially she was renting a house through a local housing association and got herself behind on rent. This was due to a number of factors but mainly she would take part time jobs because she wanted to work, have her housing cut, be worse off and fall behind in her rent.

She buried her head in the sand and was subsequently evicted from her property. She has been couch surfing with family members for over a year now but is looking to get back on her feet.

She approached the local council for help but was advised that because she was evicted she was made intentionally homeless and they cannot assist her. They advised that she would need to rent somewhere private for "some time" before she would then be considered eligible for support.

She just finished up her seasonal work this week so is now unemployed.

What I was looking to understand is how long would she need to rent privately before she would "clear" her history and be eligible for support again?

I have read a lot of guidance on housing associations in Scotland and all clearly describe what intentionally homeless is but none indicate when she would be eligible to re-apply again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Scott

silvercar

At the very least I would think she would need another tenancy agreement and face eviction - without rent arrears. You are looking a a 6 month minimum tenancy before a landlord can evict.

[Deleted User]

I would have thought she'd need to work on how to get an income and live within her means before she rents.., otherwise this will just happen again and again.

If she has some mental or health problem making this difficult.., I would look for a charity that can advise. If she lost a HA property, she will lose a council property so whatever caused the eviction needs to be dealt with first.

squinty

The issue about intentionality applies only to the last settled accommodation - ie someone who lost thier last home through thier own actions. In this case, failure to pay the rent.

It does not expire after a set period of time. Whilst the council will not help with offers of accomodation thay still may help by offering advice which will probably be in the private sector.

However - the issue of homlessness may be a bit of a red herring. If your sister has no children or health issues it would be very unlikley that she woudl be considered as homeless anyway.

Another complication is that the rent arrears with a hosing association may prevent her being offered another HA or council property at any time in the future. Some councils have policies that exclude people with 'housing related debt' from applying for holiday (technically they cannot adopt a blanket policy but there would need to be exceptional reasons - the situation you describe in unlikley to meet this definition)

I would therefore suggest that she contacts the old landlord and makes an agreement to pay the debt (note the eviction does not end the liability). Even a small regualr payment would be helpful.

Hope this is of use

Edit - just reread the original post, and did not realise you were in Scotland. The advice above relates to English law and there may be some differences.