Temporary accommodation from council - pets?

ripplyuk

A friend of mine has been given notice by her landlord after a lot of problems, and has been trying to find another house with no success. Every property she applies for, she is refused because she claims housing benefit. Even with some pretty awful looking places on gumtree.

Its starting to look like she will have to drag it out through the courts and eventually ask the council to house her in temporary accommodation (she has a baby). She is very scared of this as she has no money to pay for court costs. Also she has pets. I know this can make things more difficult finding a house but she hasn't even got to the point of mentioning pets as she's refused before that due to the housing benefit.

Does anyone know if she will have to get rid of her pets to go into temporary accommodation or is there any sort of help available? Also, how much are the court costs likely to be? Will she be given time to pay this off?

Cakeguts

Some councils have a list of private landlord who are willing to let to housing benefit tenants. Has your friend asked her local council if they have one?

elsien

What are her pets - there's a bit of difference between a house full of large dogs or a goldfish.
There's no obligation for the council to offer help so she may need to look at alternative arrangements eg could friends or family take the pets on for a bit.

ripplyuk

The council gave her a list but it was basically just websites that anyone could google for houses to rent. Actually one of the websites they listed was just "Google.com"! There was one landlord listed that accepted housing benefit but he says he doesn't expect to have anything available anytime soon.

She has 2 dogs and a cat. She's had them a long time and is very attached to them. I know it would devastate her if she has to get rid of them.

She has no family that will help at all. I could offer to take one of the them, either a dog or cat, but due to my own tenancy agreement, I can't take any more.

Marktheshark

She will have to await high court warrant Bailiffs to force entry either peacefully or by force and serve a live warrant upon her then evict her.
She needs this document to give to the council or they will boot her from the list for making herself deliberately homeless.

If she leaves at any point before the execution of the warrant by Bailiffs she will not receive any help from the council and the child will be placed under social services supervision.

They will be no pets at any temporary accommodation, it is for Humans only and it can be anywhere in England, if refused again, that's deliberate homelessness.
Apologies if this sounds harsh, it the hard truth and I deal with this situation daily.

Marktheshark

She can ask for the police to attend the eviction and ask for a sergeant to be present.
Either way she needs to inform the Bailiffs or high court sheriff officers they like to call themselves these days that by law they have to exchange the paper warrant or Writ of Possession of its high court for possession.
No warrant exchange = no eviction and if they do not have a live on paper copy to serve the police can suspend the action until they print one off and get it signed.
This is called a warrant of execution or Writ of Possession and this is the document she needs to provide to the council .
Once they have this document the council emergency housing team will provide temporary bed and breakfast or emergency housing.
They will not discuss this without the documentation from the Bailiffs.

High court bailiffs are employed by the court and are usually more than aware of their duties to serve the right documents required in exchange for possession.

I hope it works out.

[Deleted User]

I was in the same situation last year, she needs to ask the council what their policy is re emergency housing so she has an idea what she will be moving to (my council doesn't place in B&B miles away but they do try to place even large families in one room hostel accommodation initially, then I was told it would be a one bed flat. I was able to fill in a form and supply evidence that I had two children with special needs and was given a 2 bed maisonette instead). Different LA's have different policies. My council places people locally, others will place people in B&B many miles away. She really does need to ask.

I have a dog, not knowing what I'd be going to until the afternoon after the bailiffs turned up, I made arrangements for him to be elsewhere. Once I was in the maisonette (ground floor) I was given permission to have the dog here (has a small front garden). But there was no guarantee this would be possible. If B&B accommodation is allocated or a hostel room, your friend will have to think more permanently. She will either have to find a friend of some sort, place an ad in a paper or ask the RSPCA to take her pets. Its not good but there isn't an alternative.

Googling 'her location' and 'pet fostering' might bring up a charity that will help.

Court fees for the possession order was £280, the bailiffs cost £110. I agreed with the LL that this would be taken out of my deposit.

Your friend also needs to think about how to store her stuff. I managed to find a friend of a friend with a container. I was slowly clearing out things and boxing up for at least a couple of months. I took a lot of things to charity shops in my shopping trolleys. I really did work hard on thinning down what I had, in case I needed to pay for storage.

I have to say Marktheshark, I had a bailiff come round. I asked him for some paperwork to prove he'd been round to evict me and he said he didn't have any, that all I needed for the council was the bailiffs warrant sent by the court (which I'd already copied to the council). He was right, I wasn't asked for anything. I don't know, maybe it depends on the area?

ripplyuk

Thanks for the replies. It's a harsh reality, and one I know she will struggle with, if she doesn't find anywhere soon. I've explained the process to her, but she's terrified if I even mention 'court' and thinks it will get her in trouble. The landlord didn't take a deposit so the costs can't be covered from that.

I fear she will leave rehoming the pets until bailiffs arrive, hoping for some miracle and by then it's too late to find good homes for them. I've no idea what would would happen to the animals then.

The charities I've found for pet fostering only help in cases of domestic violence.

Richey_

Marktheshark wrote: »

She can ask for the police to attend the eviction and ask for a sergeant to be present.

Where do you get this "advice" from?

Police will only attend to prevent a breach of the peace. They do not get involved in any civil law warrant execution. You could ask for the Chief Constable to be present but the same as a sergeant the Police have no requirement to provide and it is very unlikely that even a sergeant would be provided. A police officer would be there only long enough to be satisfied that there will be no breach of the peace or that no criminal offences have occurred/likely to occur.

A high court enforement officer (or sherrif if you watch the TV programs) will always have the written court paperwork. If the police are called and if they attend then they will of course need to see the paperwork and then they will ensure that the High Court Enforcement Officers are not obstructed in their duties and that no criminal offences either have or are likely to occur.

Wishing you all the best of luck for your friend

GwylimT

Its is very unlikely any animals (bar registered assistance animals) will be allowed in temporary housing.

So she needs to either have them fostered, put them in kennels or surrender them when in temp housing. Small rescue centres will often offer to temporarily look after animals in situations like these, so I suggest she contacts all animal rescues in her area.

If the cat and dog breeders are decent ones, they will also be willing to foster the animals, or take them back to find a suitabe home.

You can take one, so she only needs a temporary home for two others now, is there a reason her childs father can't home them or the animals?

[Deleted User]

I was resigned to losing my dog, so I have to admit to unbelievable joy the day he came to our new place. My kids (who both have ASD) immediately de-stressed quite a bit. It made this place seem a bit more like home (although we have been very lucky). We did ask for permission though (from the Emergency Lettings Manager).

The court documents officially stated that I had to repay the LL the court fees within 28 days. Your friend, I am afraid will have to budget for this. She doesn't want to get a CCJ on top of everything else.

I know its a very stressful process. But you can cope, and the more prepared you are, the better it will be. She must thin down her stuff (I reckon I halved what I had) to make storage more manageable, box it up giving herself plenty of time to do this. Don't leave it til the last minute because you don't know where you are going and to what, I am afraid I assumed the worst and prepared for that, anything else was better then lol. It helped that I controlled what I could, helplessness is the worse thing about being evicted in this situation. You can limit the damage by preparing. One of the things I did was get a cheap fridge freezer (did very well there) and a multi cooker from Ebay so whatever I ended up in, I'd be able to prepare food economically. I had been in emergency accommodation some years before with nothing so remembered that experience well and prepared.

The people helped me on here so much. I know I was very down at times and I got a lot of support. I was told I'd look back on it and it would be better and it is. I will be here (emergency accommodation) for some years but we are doing fine. In fact it feels better than it did in the four years of private renting (for nearly half of that I had the LL saying he was going to sell, putting the rent up beyond LHA etc). At least I don't have a LL threatening eviction if I look at him wrong, and I actually got my boiler repaired by the council with no fuss whatsoever lol, plus a number of other things. Even though its emergency accommodation, I'm busy decorating (economically but well, the place looks tonnes better than it did when I moved in just with a good clean).

And my sons, who don't deal with change too well, are doing fine. We were able to limit the damage.