Housing Association Eviction - what can we do?

PlanHappy

Firstly, thank you all for your help.

I spoke to the HA today. The first answer I got was "no, there's nothing we can do even if you pay it off in full right now, the house is no longer hers." They promised to put me in touch with Housing Solutions, who would conduct a homelessness interview with her and help her figure out where she could go from there. They promised to call me back in a couple of hours.

I waited for their call, but they were delayed, so I called them. They were about to get me the details for Housing Solutions, when I pointed out that the debt was presumably still outstanding and I would like to speak to someone about that in any case. My objective was really just to get through to some kind of rent/debt collector as I suspected they would be more amenable to me waving money under their noses.

I got put through to a guy and explained that I would be happy to pay my mother's debt, but I would need her to pay it back to me, which meant that I would need her to be in a secure position - i.e. housed. So I would give them the cash as long as they didn't leave her homeless. As I'd hoped, they jumped at the offer of full payment (plus a bit for the eviction expenses) and went off to talk to management. They came back to confirm that her tenancy wasn't yet technically voided, so she could have her keys back provided that:
1. I paid off the debt in full before the end of tomorrow;
2. my mother set up a direct debit for her future payments.

They also expressed concern about her state of mind and said they would like to offer some sort of outreach once she was back home. I said that would be great and I would talk to them more about that when everything was sorted out.

I finally persuaded my mother to call me - "We can get your house back" works quite well, as it turns out - and she agreed to set up the direct debit and to let me help her with her money management.

So I've paid the money, she's getting her keys back today, she's setting up a direct debit, and I'm going up this weekend to sit down and go through her finances.

And I'm sending some kind of muffin basket to the two people at the housing association who helped me today.

Edit: By the way, as a couple of people were wondering about the extent of the debt: It was around £1500, which equates to around 4 months' rent. So I think it must have been exactly as pmlindyloo suggested - she had a few months last year where she couldn't pay, but has been back on track since then. I'm slightly staggered that she allowed such a small amount - which she could comfortably have paid off over the course of a few months - to force her out of her home. (She, on the other hand, was surprised at how "big" the number was, when I told her what it was - which shows something about her attitude to budgeting, as she doesn't realise how easily she should be able to afford it.) But as as a lot of you have said, this is what happens when you bury your head in the sand.

PaperDoll

That's a great result, PlanHappy.

Hopefully, now that she knows that there are consequences to not paying her rent, she'll be more co-operative in future and accepting of the offered help.

Good luck!

(And the muffin basket will not be expected but will be hugely appreciated )

Upsidedown_Bear

Thank you for the update and really pleased your mum has her house back.
I hope things go smoothly from now for her and she gets the help she needs.

I also hope she realises how lucky she is to have you helping :A

pmlindyloo

This is a truly amazing result. I have never heard of someone getting their house back after an eviction by bailiffs. Also I have never heard that, in this situation, the tenancy hadn't been technically voided.

Lots of HAs have support officers and this is something that your mother should take advantage of.

Now that your mum has opened up and allowed you to help with her finances please do check that she hasn't any other debts and find help to deal with them. Also set up DDs for all her utilities etc (in other words draw up an income and expenditure statement so that everything is catered for. ) it would be all too easy for her to get into a pickle again.

As she is not receiving any pay during the summer holidays(is this correct?) then she should look into claiming JSA during this period and HB and CT reduction. Also check that she is not in arrears with her council tax - another priority - and that she has been receiving the single person's discount.

Lots of help on this site for help with either debt/benefits etc.

FBaby

This is a great result and I hope your mum will appreciate it. Even though she has to cope with mental health issues, she has to accept her responsibility in what happened and that avoiding the issue (as clearly she has from everyone) is only ever going to make the matter worse.

The issue now is to ensure it doesn't happen again and I were in your shoes, I would be very clear with my mum that I wouldn't be in a position to bail her out again, that she needs to take account of the fact that she might be without work at time and need to budget for it, that you are prepared to help her and monitor her spending, but that she can't close the door on you if suddenly she is spending in a way that is likely to put her in a bad situation again.

agrinnall

Good news, it's resolved the immediate issue. If you and your sister can get your mum to think seriously about this I would consider getting Financial Lasting Power of Attorney set up so that both of you can have the ability to exercise some control over how her money is used.

ancientofdays

I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am by your care for your um and the way you've managed this very difficult situation

PlanHappy

This is a truly amazing result. I have never heard of someone getting their house back after an eviction by bailiffs. Also I have never heard that, in this situation, the tenancy hadn't been technically voided.

Yes - they made it very clear that this was a one-off and it's never happened before, and she won't be given a third chance should this happen again. My guess is that they couldn't declare the house as available until her property had been removed (and from what I understand from the research I've done in the last 24 hours, they have an obligation to ensure that it is returned to her and can't simply be dumped or put on the front doorstep, so perhaps that is a complicated process). Or someone hadn't put through a bit of paperwork and we just caught it in time. Or it was void but they were happy to overlook it in order to get the debt paid and avoid further eviction expenses. Whatever the case - thank god it worked. (For anyone in the same situation, what we've done is clearly worth a try, but I think this outcome is by far the exception rather than the rule.)

I'm not relaxing or planning the next steps (or sending the muffin basket!) until she gets the keys this evening and I know the immediate danger is over. Once that's happened, and she's back in the house, my next priority is sorting things out for the future, as you all suggest. If I can convince her to set up a PoA, I absolutely will. Ideally I want to set things up so that bills and rent get paid off (and a bit of savings put aside to build up a safety net) from an account that my sister or I control, before she can touch the money, and then she gets the rest as pocket money for general living expenses. I don't know much about claiming benefits but will read up on that for my trip this weekend. So I think we can do something on the financial side to prevent this happening in the future. I'm not quite as confident about getting her help for her depression - she would have to cooperate, consistently, and she doesn't have a good track record there - but will be speaking to my sister about this in more depth.

FINAL EDIT: She's back in the house, and a box of brownies is on its way to some HA officials! Virtual brownies for all of you guys too

theartfullodger

Great news planhappy, excellent work by you, well done! Apologies for being gloomy, glad to see a sensible outcome.

Best wishes to all for the future!

missbiggles1

pmlindyloo wrote: »

This is a truly amazing result. I have never heard of someone getting their house back after an eviction by bailiffs. Also I have never heard that, in this situation, the tenancy hadn't been technically voided.

Lots of HAs have support officers and this is something that your mother should take advantage of.

Now that your mum has opened up and allowed you to help with her finances please do check that she hasn't any other debts and find help to deal with them. Also set up DDs for all her utilities etc (in other words draw up an income and expenditure statement so that everything is catered for. ) it would be all too easy for her to get into a pickle again.

As she is not receiving any pay during the summer holidays(is this correct?) then she should look into claiming JSA during this period and HB and CT reduction. Also check that she is not in arrears with her council tax - another priority - and that she has been receiving the single person's discount.

Lots of help on this site for help with either debt/benefits etc.

Whilst not disgreeing with your advice, setting up DDs won't help if there isn't money in the account to cover them when they become due. It's difficult enough for anybody to manage sharply fluctating income without MH problems - I hope she'll accept help from someone with stretching her income to cover lean periods.

Also be aware that there can be problems claiming JSA if you say you're a supply teacher - some information on that here.

https://community.tes.com/threads/can-supply-teachers-claim-jsa-in-the-summer-hols.323644/

https://www.tes.com/article.aspx?storycode=19016