Section 21 advice & court - please advise on how this works.....

silvercar

I am glad you are able to look to the positives in a difficult situation. HAving read the long thread, at least her outcome was positive and she has been given a home - hopefully you will get one too.

I have read your posts, just wanted to comment on one small bit of it.

I did read that if we refuse to leave we will then have to pay for this so can someone please clarify this for me. Ironically we'll probably have to end up lending her the money to pay for putting the court order in as well.

Theoretically, your Mum could sue you for the court costs she pays to evict you. I don't see why you are lending your Mum the money to go to court to evict you. This seems ridiculous; how much help are you meant to give her when every bit of help you give leads a step nearer to being homeless?
If the Council got wind of the fact you were paying her costs to make you homeless, they could class this as you intentionally making yourself homeless!

teeni

an application for a possession order costs £150 and for a bailliffs warrant £95.00
your mum can ask the court to award the costs against you.

if you lend your mum the money to start proceedings and the homeless officer finds out you will be deemed intentionally homeless and the local authority will only have to house you for a reasonable period usually 28 days

teeni

blue_monkey_2

Yah, I just typed a long message and then lost it!!

Thank you for telling me that. I am always torn on helping her out and thinking why should I give a toss. That is why we was going to lend it to her (I guess it was ASSUMED we would pay for it in all honesty) but if it comes to this there is no way and she can get the money from somewhere else. She doesn't even have a cheque book or credit card so it is always us paying for stuff, doing things for her and the like. I guess we felt we had to as we owed her something - if we was not here then I don;t know what we would do and I guess we felt that because of this we had to do it. I even lent her the money when she remortgaged to pay her fees. We struggle with money too but what annoys me is that her and her bf go to the pub 4 or 5 nights a week and spend £30 a week on the lottery yet we struggle to get by. And then she moans that she is either skint or feels crap (due to being in the pub too often). She owed us some money as we bought her a washing machine and a few other bits and peices and it was £160 left to pay us, she has come up this week with the money (we asked her to save it until we was due to go on holiday) and it is £50 short yet she says that is it and all that she owes. I am too weak to argue over it despite the fact I was relying on getting it for our budget (1 1/2 days food money eating out). i think it'll do me good to get away from here but there is no way I am dropping myself in it, she can borrow it from my sister or something.

I don;t know what we are going to do. My brother and other siste don;t speak to us alread as we have lived here all this time, let alone with us refusing to go. 75% of me wishes we had walked away and left them all to it years ago but we thought we was helping her out by being here and renovating the house for her.

Right now I feel like a bloody fool!!!!

blue_monkey_2

Just another thought, can she get everything charged against the house for when she sells??

TBH I just want out of here now and the sooner the better and I don't want to be here anymore. I feel betrayed in a way, i know it is her house and all, but to call me and say she is off to the EA tomorrow just 8 weeks before Xmas has left me feeling very angry and quite empty inside. I am sick of smiling for everyone when all I feel like doing is crying

silvercar

I get the feeling that you are trying to keep everyone happy and pleasing no-one.

Your siblings feel you have had something for nothing for living in the house.

Your Mum feels you should be making yourself homeless to support her; probably because she feels she has been giving you a home.

You feel that you have spent money on the house and have helped increase its value and are now having to make yourself homeless in return.

But on the other hand you understand that you have a duty to your family to provide a home.

All thoughts that are contradicting each other!

I think its time to prioritise your immediate family and by that I mean your children. Your Mum and siblings are not going to be happy whatever you do, so stop.

Tell them that if they want you out, they will have to sort out the eviction themselves, you cannot carry on evicting yourself on their behalf.

I would also suggest you try and find out if you have a claim on some of the house. You have been paying the mortgage and improvements for so long that you may be entitled to a share of its value.

blue_monkey_2

Hi Silvercar,

I guess that is the problem, I am trying so hard to hold things together, always pleasing everyone else and leaving us last. I have left I wanted to help my mum hold onto this place so she had something for the future and so she could afford to retire. Both me, OH and my younger sister seem to feel there is something more to this 'sale' in that something is not right in all she says. It would not been so bad if she has decided to wait another year when i could then turn to my business for more of an income - as it is my family has to come first, at least we would have had 2 incomes them to enable us to rent somewhere, now I have to close my business for the forseeable future leaving us with less income. Lots of things add up to the one big picture really. And yes you are right, we have put everything into making the house better for her and now feel we have had akick in the teeth - my husband even said the other day that 'the others would be laughing now' I asked him why and he said 'they'd never wanted us here did they'. Going back a long way (pre-children again) my sister and her husband were going to offer mum 53k as it stood at worth 125k. They knew that us being here meant that mum would refuse to sell as she did not have to worry about affording the house, they have been biding their time for us to be out so they could offer mum a paltry amount for it. As it stands a month back sister and hubby split so she is moving somewhere smaller and cheaper so that would not happen now anyway (something to laugh about anyway for all she has done and said to us along the way - I am mean!!). So, there is a lot of history and when we have always offered to move out in the past to make life easier she has always insisted we stay as she needed us here.

I think I need someone to tell me what you have, kind of weird hearing it, makes me feel very emotional and that feels strange too. What are you doing to me??!!

Mum has always said she would give us 'something' - whatever that 'something is I do not want to either ask or assume. i do know that if either my brother or sister knew about this they would block this in every way possible and we would not get a penny, the only person who feels mum is in the wrong is my younger sister (there are 4 of us) as she cannot see why she is doing it (and it is her and I that are in daily contact iwth this situation), she thinks I am entitled to something too and has told me this, however, I live for a quiet life, I would like to have enough money to be able to (if I ever get a house) decorate it and buy a new 3 piece suite as my son has ruined this one. I don't think that is much but on the other hand I still feel bad for wanting - and for thinking - I am owed something for all that we have done.

On another note, the council has been giving me all the advice for my mum, they told me about the section 21 and about her having to go through the court so surely they are just going to tell me that I have given her this advice and helped her. I am confused now, but the council housing department are the ones telling me how to go about making sure we are out 'in the proper manner' and so we are not making ourselves intentionally homeless. Are they help me or are they going to turn this against me. they have even offered to send ME the blank Section 21 form for her. Eek, please advise on this, they are the ones telling me what i have to do otherwise I would not have had a clue. Thanks.

clutton_2

i so agree = why are you helping to evict your own family - especially so near christmas. if they want you out, let them do all the paperwork and running around - they may get their paperwork wrong and the judge will throw it out and they will have to start all over again - it happens day in and day out to landlords, let alone someone who knows nothing about the system.

stop tearing round and enjoy crimbo, as best you can, and talk to your private lettings officer at the council - the often have lists of private landlords who are helpful in housing benefit tenants and those with life problems.

good luck - and please start to spend your energy on your OWN family from now on !!!

blue_monkey_2

Thanks for all your advice guys. Today has seen me taking on a new perspective and thinking of just us (it does not help that nasty, niggly guilty feeling I get for doing it though, it's just the way I am )

So, the plan is, we will give Mum the blank Section 21, tell her the date we pay the rent (she probably does not know) and then tell her that she NEEDS to find a solicitor after she has served that on us as we can no longer help her. The HO has told us to get her to do that and it is as far as I am going to go on tha, she is going to need one anyway when she sells (I think) so she might as well get ful use of their services, she is going to have a few bob in her pocket after this so solicitors fees are not a big deal I would have thought.

I totally understand what you are saying, we are going to apply to the places we need to (HA and local landlord) still have not done this, daughter been ill today and the doc sent us up A&E so another day 'wasted and we (maybe if DD is OK) will be off on holiday Sunday so we can have some time out from this with some luck.

It doesn't help that I get to bed put my head on the pillow and my brain starts whirring with everything I need to do and pack, throw away, it's driving me nuts as I can;t swicth off from it. I KNOW that the LA won;t have us, beleive it or not, the list I got from the council website INCLUDES those that turned us down as not earning enough or have NO HB or NO DSS on the bottoms of their ads I have been taking a lot of info from their websites, I am spending too much time on this and need some time out from it to start preparing for Xmas now.

The thing is, I DO want to go now an realise that everything is for a reason and that our time here is done. She would not have said it if she did not mean it, mum has made an off the cuff comment about changing her mind, but having talked this over with my husband that is not really acceptable. How long before she changes her mind and then changes it again? 6 weeks, months, years.... all that time does not give us security with having a young family and with not being able to sleep I am snappy with them and this is not a place I want to be. I have got some quotes for storage, just need to work like a trojan in making sure we can clear some stock and earn enough to pay for 6 months storange - anything after this we will have to deal with as is I guess. But, I am prepapred for going into a hostel now and prepared for getting the stuff into storage, I spent the other night awake thinking on what to take and then thinking that actually, it is not that bad as it means that - albeit not right away - getting our own place will happen one day.

I am going to make sure that I do not implicate myself anymore in this, I will tell the council I have told my mum that she needs a solicitor and that her solicitor has written to us - this way she can't 'forget' or not be bothered (she is very much like this) and it'll get done. I am worried that she will mess us around and then we'll get chucked off the list as well and have nowhere at all to go.

My son is seeing the GP tomorrow - I had to cancel everything today because the doc told me to get DD to A&E, I explained why I needed to see her about my son and what the school had noted and and she immediately booked me in tomorrow to see one of the senior doctors who specialises in things like this. I just want to get things moving before things start happening so he is not passed from one doc to another or from one school to another. He hates change with a vengance so this is why I want to keep him at the school while he has the extra help - they tell me that he is responding quite well to having the extra teaching assistant (depsite me seeing him having a major strop on her last week ), but I want to keep this stability in his life no matter how far I have to drive to do it. I got a new tablecloth last week he came in from school started screaming because it was on the table, grabbed it off and shoved it out of the cat flap. *sigh* While I am 'ready' for going into a hostel, the thought of being stuck in one room with my son for the best part of a day is something I am not going to think about until the day before!!! Especially as it means his beloved trainset and his cars are not going to be able to come with us in full. LOL.

Martinslovechild

A little off-topic, but...

blue_monkey - how have you managed to accrue so many Tesco points in a quarter? I'm lucky if I manage a fraction of your quarterly total...

sooz

Hi blue monkey,

I know it's hard, but i really think that you are doing the right thing, however hard it might be in the short term. Living with/being beholden to family who treat you like that and change their minds at the drop of a hat is awful.

Give your mum your rent date, and get her to seek her own legal advice about correctly serving the section 21.

And stop doing anything to her house. Seperate the fact that she is your mum, from the fact that she is your landlady. It is not your responsibility to decorate her house or fix the heating.

Concentrate on your own family, and getting the help you need for your children.

It's good that you are planning on storage and how to cope temporarily in a B & B or hostel. If you can get your son involved in choosing what he wants to keep with him, it might go some way to helping him adjust. Give him a (smallish) bag, and let him choose what he wants to take (always works with ours when going on holiday...the bag has to close!) If he's into trains, he could keep a small selection of his track to make a little on with one or two trains, rather than storing the whole lot. Cut the trains back gradually so he won't notice!

And when you do get round to packing, list everything that goes into every box, and label the box, and keep the list with you. We found this really helped when we had to put our stuff in storage for a while. Upstairs rooms in storage facilities were cheaper, and we went with lots of small boxes, each labelled, so if we needed stuff we did know where to find it....eventually. There is nothing worse than suddenly finding you need to have a piece of paper...to tax your car, for example...and having no idea in which box it is :mad: