Being made homeless, council advice seems dodgy

benjus

dinofabio wrote: »

Firstly, it's not the tenants home - the property belongs to the LL. The tenant pays rent to occupy it. The LL can serve notice to leave in the same way a tenant can. No cause or reason is required by either party. Everything is equal. But that is where the equality ends.

A growing number of professional sponger tenants know how to work the system. 9 months plus is not an unusual amount of time to evict a non paying tenant if he knows how to play the game. That's 9 months living rent free. Legal costs incurred by the LL and then fingers crossed said tenants don't trash the house before they leave walking away £000's of debt as a parting gift. Theses type of tenants move on and do the same again because there is nothing to stop them doing so.

People like yourself, councils, shelter, cab etc are always on hand giving advise and encouragement on how to play the game.

On the other hand, the law provides very little protection for the landlord who is just expected to take the financial hit.

There are a lot more rogue tenants out there in comparison to rogue landlords.

Thankfully, the majority of tenants are fine, but don't try to kid me the law isn't heavily in their favour. The vast majority of LL's maintain their properties and do repairs it's in their own interest to do so.

It is most definitely the tenant's home, even if the tenant doesn't own the bricks and mortar.

Do you have anything to back up your assertion that there are more rogue tenants than landlords other than your own opinion? We see plenty of both on here.

Any talk of the law being heavily weighted in the tenant's favour is nonsense. And I say this as someone that has been in the position of landlord to a problem tenant. The fact that no-fault evictions exist puts a lot of power in the landlord's hands. Yes, the tenant can also end the tenancy, but that doesn't result in someone involuntarily having to find a new home.

Rollinghills

Obviously I don't know your circumstances and finances but I would not count on the council helping because to do that you would have to eventually go through the painful process of a court case and bailiffs.
I would close the case with the council and stop them sending the letter to the landlady.
I would look into getting housing benefit which should be a separate case.
I'd then try to save money for the deposit. At some point I would try to negotiate with the landlady to buy more time. Not having a correct section 21 could be the final negotiation tool but I'd rather keep it amicable if possible to get a reference.

emlou2009

Doing it this way we can save enough money ourselves to not use the council. Then we get to avoid temporary accommodation withno say on where we go and just generally avoid upheaval on the family.

MargaretB_2

emlou2009 wrote: »

Please be gentle...

Myself and my OH are private tenants with two children. We've received notice from our landlord to move out by the end of May.

We've been struggling in recent months financially and have no savings put by to use towards a rental deposit, so this morning I went to our local council for advice.

I was given the advice to stay put after the notice issued and wait for the landlord to take us to court, which would then either enable them to help us or at least buy us some extra time to scrape a private deposit together.

I'm not really comfortable doing that, I'd sooner not mess around as it sounds like added stress for all involved, and it feels morally wrong, I don't want to be a squatter, but if its our only option we may have to do so. Will we be breaking the law if we do so?

So, my question is, if we do take the advice of the council, how long extra are we buying ourselves realistically?

Just a thought, but if you are receiving any housing benefit you can often get the council to guarantee a deposit for a private rental. In fact, you might be able to even if you don't. Also, it occurs to me that if your landlord has to get stroppy to get you out, you might not get a reference if you do want to rent again.

lighting_up_the_chalice

dinofabio wrote: »

Firstly, it's not the tenants home - the property belongs to the LL.

Firstly, it IS the tenants home. A tenancy grants an interest in that property to the tenant.

dinofabio wrote: »

A growing number of professional sponger tenants know how to work the system. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc. Theses type of tenants move on and do the same again because there is nothing to stop them doing so.

Apart from landlords who behave in a professional way, adhere to their legal requirements and, most of all, carry out due diligence prior to the grant of a tenancy. Sadly, many LLs get blinded by all those £££.

dinofabio wrote: »

People like yourself, councils, shelter, cab etc are always on hand giving advise and encouragement on how to play the game.

On the other hand, the law provides very little protection for the landlord who is just expected to take the financial hit.

No-one forces anyone to be a landlord. No-one forces a LL to accept any tenant. Reference and credit check agencies are plentiful, as are various landlord associations, local landlord forums, professional organisations to deal with any aspects of a tenancy the LL wishes, insurance against losses, etc etc etc.

dinofabio wrote: »

There are a lot more rogue tenants out there in comparison to rogue landlords.

That must be why we had to have the TDP legislation, all those honest, salt of the earth landlords throwing deposits back to their tenants with gay abandon. There are bad people in every walk of life, and the proportion always seems to be pretty consistent. I would suggest that for every rogue tenant, there will be a rogue landlord waiting.

dinofabio wrote: »

Thankfully, the majority of tenants are fine, but don't try to kid me the law isn't heavily in their favour. The vast majority of LL's maintain their properties and do repairs it's in their own interest to do so.

In 2012, Gas Safe Register - the UK’s official gas safety authority – inspected gas work in nearly 43,000 homes nationally. Of the properties which were privately rented, more than one in five (22 per cent) were found to be unsafe and could have resulted in a gas fire, leak, explosion or CO poisoning. This is compared to 16 per cent of privately owned homes found to be unsafe and just 12 per cent of homes rented through a local authority or housing association. With 4.1 million privately let properties in Britain, these figures suggest there could be around 900,000 homes at risk.

And that's the ones that even bother with a gas safety check.