Being made homeless, council advice seems dodgy

[Deleted User]

I have had more than one or two problems with my LL and last year he told me he was going to sell. Didn't serve notice though.

Several viewings later which caused a few problems, I went to the council, fairly stressed as you do and they told me they wouldn't regard me as homeless until I was served with a S21, and if they did rehouse me it would be into B&B in another area. So !!!!!! my children's schooling basically. I also was not told about legal fees (but know about them).

I told them my sons have special needs., all they said was I'd probably be given two rooms in a B&B. Not a great deal of comfort. Not a great deal of help from Housing.

I have since managed to get help from social services and because of my health and my son's special needs, just been told I will be given high priority banding for rehousing. Still without notice having been served.

So what housing tells you is balderdash. Its just to get you out of the door. Unfortunately it works a lot of the time. Its taken a lot of stress and searching to get me this far. I know housing is in short supply but if I'd been referred to the right people in the first place, me getting worse could have been avoided (stress induced).

emlou2009

Hmmm. Council lady not happy at all. Said she can't not send the letter because she will be open to complaints against her for not following proper procedures.

I did eventually manage to get her to agree to hold off on sending it til tomorrow, by agreeing to send her an email saying I would be sourcing a private rental property. Apparently she has to check with her manager tomorrow that she can not send it! Argh!

stator

If your landlord didn't register the deposit you should make a claim on that, you'd get UPTO 3x the deposit awarded.

RAS

stator wrote: »

If your landlord didn't register the deposit you should make a claim on that, you'd get UPTO 3x the deposit awarded.

The deposit is secured

emlou2009 wrote: »

The deposit was secured with TDS.

We do not know if the prescribed information was provided correctly.

Rollinghills

Do I understand correctly, she will speak with her manager to find out whether she is ok not to send it? If not I would insist on speaking to her manager . You went to the council for the advice! If the landlady wanted advice on how to legally and properly evict a tenant she should have gone for advice herself. Very frustrating.

bris

The council are morons, not all councils operate this way. The two councils I rent over (Scotland) will help a tenant being evicted if they receive the proper paperwork at the end of the 2 months notice, they do not insist on a court order.


Not only will you have to pay the legal fees but your references are also going to be bad. As well as that if you don't pay the legal fees because everything is pilling up on you, you could even end up with your credit file trashed.


All this hassle just for the council to stick you in some crappy bed sit, they are wrong to do this, I hope it all works out for you. No one wins here both you and the LL will suffer because of the council.

emlou2009

I'll be ringing as soon as the offices are open tomorrow, as she said the manager was not in today.

It sounds like by saying she will send the letter I've asked her not to send, she's stitching us up to the tune of however much legal fees cost, and making us homeless sooner! You'd think she'd appreciate me reducing her workload by going private.

Rollinghills

Yeah, be insistent! If she does send it then ideally you can tell your landlady around mid-May that her notice is not valid or wait for her to realise it. That way you'll have till end of July if she has to issue a proper notice.
If she doesn't and tries to go to court it will be most likely rejected and if it is rejected she will have to pay court costs.

martindow

You mention struggling financially and say that you do not claim housing benefit. Have you checked your eligibility for HB or other benefits you may be entitled to?

billjohnson1986

Just a heads up, If the Land Lord takes this to the High Court then you can be evicted a lot quicker.

A lot of councils don't inform people of this and people get evicted a lot quicker then if following the usual route. You see this a lot on "Cant pay, we'll take it away."

I'm not sure what criteria the Landlord requires to take this to the High Court and i don't want to alarm you, I'm just trying to give you a heads up.