The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

mardatha

Burtha, my system is to go to bed, talk to the guides, my family passed, to anybody "out there" listening. Ask them to arrange things for you for the best, and then go to sleep and leave it with them. Things tend to sort themselves out that way, in my view. xxx

ivyleaf

Lovely to "see" you kittie. I

nursemaggie How are things with you? Any further forward with finding a new home? Thoughts are with you, with burtha, and with kittie, not to mention mardatha

nursemaggie

We were offered a ground floor flat just three streets away. We are waiting to be able to see it as it is still occupied. I took DS to see it this afternoon. I think he approves. Of course once he has done his degree and has worked long enough to build up a deposit for his own flat he will move out and hopefully if we are accepted for this flat it will be my forever home. All we can do is wait and we are not allowed to bid for another flat until they have decided if we are suitable for this flat.

We are planning Christmas as if we will still be in this house but we have no idea where we will be. We may even have to postpone Christmas as they expect us to wait and wait until we know we are moving and then move in in a couple of days.

Burtha your children will not necessarily be leaving home when they finish their education. So many are staying at home because the job situation is difficult and housing is even worse. Many are finding their children still at home in their 30s.

ivyleaf

nursemaggie What a confusing system! So, you've been "offered" this flat but they haven't yet decided whether you're suitable tenants? That's just mad :mad:

juliettet

mardatha wrote: »

Burtha, my system is to go to bed, talk to the guides, my family passed, to anybody "out there" listening. Ask them to arrange things for you for the best, and then go to sleep and leave it with them. Things tend to sort themselves out that way, in my view. xxx

Having a bad time at work at the moment. I am going to do this. Thanks Mardatha.

nursemaggie

ivyleaf it's the system everywhere. You don't go on a list and get points you register and every week you are allowed to bid on two suitable properties you qualify for, eg we are allowed no more and no less than 2 bedrooms, Some flats have age restrictions because they are sheltered housing so DS is not allowed.

There is no such thing as a council house any more there are two separate companies owned by the council at arms length. The council owns the only share and they are registered with charity commission as housing associations. One of the associations just deals with advertising of the properties and short lists people. They also do the same with all the local properties from housing associations.

The other organisation actually lets the houses. They offer the property to the person at the top of the list of those shortlisted. People can be on the list because they want to move to a more suitable property so I have a feeling there could be a family in the flat and they are moving to a house. I actually bid on this house the day we were given our notice to quit.

The housing association who are letting the flat expected me to get references to them in two working days. That is actual written references though only on forms that only someone working in local government would understand . The equivalent to a housing officer in the private sector will have no idea that all the numbers are acts of parliament.

I am guessing with all this complication, which I don't fully understand myself, even though I have worked for one of these arms length Housing associations, they end up with long chains just like just like when buying a house. We also have to have police checks and get our housing benefit sorted before we move. I don't even know if our references have got their yet.

It is worse than you say ivyleaf I had to say we would accept it the day they offered it.

We also have a council department to deal with. We saw them Wednesday of last week but they will not tell the housing association we are in urgent need for 28 days. It is up to this department to get us rehoused by the time we have been evicted. We also are not allowed to bid on another property until they have completed all their checks.

ivyleaf

:eek: Good grief! Thanks for explaining. I don't think I've ever come across such a complicated way of doing things in all my life! I really hope you get the flat ((HUGS))

silvasava

Oh Nursemaggie - why do they make it so complicated - surely no one benefits from all this bureaucracy least of all the people its supposed to help. Fingers crossed for you & do hope you find somewhere just right for you both

burtha

Wow nursemaggie thats so stupid , how to make things so much more complicated than they need to be ..designed by people in very big houses with no sense of how the real normal people live , fingers crossed you get it ..

nursemaggie

Actually if you really look into what bureaucracy is, it is designed to prevent corruption. In the case of housing nepotism. You know giving your best mate a house in a nice area.

This was designed to give people in social housing more choice. It becomes impossibly complicated to do this when you have to make it impossible for corruption to happen and at the same time not have accommodation empty for too long.