Eviction Timescales for Anti-Social Behaviour

meeemee

You are lucky to have options I’m sure someone would love your home, annoying neighbour or not, you can’t have your cake and eat it!

LocoLoco

meeemee said:

You are lucky to have options I’m sure someone would love your home, annoying neighbour or not, you can’t have your cake and eat it!

I'm trying to avoid a nervous breakdown, a serious deterioration in my disabled son's health, quite possibly a violent assault, homelessness and a barrow load of debt. How dare you reduce a situation as serious and debilitating as the one we're currently in to an 'annoying neighbour'.  Idiot.

HampshireH

No you cannot simultaneously run a private a social housing tenancy.

Your social tenancy must be your main and principal home. Aka lived in. This applies regardless of whether you get another tenancy.

You will be in breach of your tenancy otherwise and face eviction. 

If the HA finds out you aren't living there the same applies. Because of course they provide social housing based on need and therefore expect it to be used as such and not left empty.

Usually you have a maximum of 4 weeks you can use to crossover to move (a notice period).

So you really will need to make a decision one way or the other

Lunchbox

Have the local council/police been involved and have they served a Community Protection Notice? (Although housing associations can also serve the notices our experience was that they deferred to the council). Although they don’t result in the eviction of the tenant, they can make some or all of the ASB a criminal offence, and the resident can be issued with penalities, or arrested, when they breach the notice. They were effective in our area when a tenant could not be evicted due to Covid and were engaging in behaviour affecting hundreds of nearby properties. They also lend weight to an ASB eviction case.

TripleH

Op, antisocial behaviour isn't just tied to council housing. I know of council housing where there is a stronger sense of community than some wealthier areas (where it can be more about what can I get from you that makes me look better).

I lived in a 'more desirable' rental building once. Whilst there were plenty of nice people, there were plenty who believed in an over inflated sense of entitlement "I pay all this rent so I should be able to throw loud parties every night" with no regard to their neighbours.

Hopefully you will soon find yourself in an area with lots of friendly neighbours to welcome you into your new community.

LocoLoco

Hi everybody.  I just wanted to update on our situation and to thank all those who kindly posted helpful and useful comments and advice.  It was/is very much appreciated.

Unfortunately the situation became much worse and both myself and my son experienced a very dramatic and difficult decline in both our mental and physical health.  My son (who has learning disabilities) regressed terribly and watching him unravel was horrible.  I can't remember how much had happened at the time I was originally posting (and I don't want to re-read the thread as I'm trying to put it all behind me now!) but it became apparent that the anti-social neighbour was selling drugs from his property and basically ruled the estate - people either bought their drugs from him or were too frightened to speak out against him.  It had apparently been like that for years and I was told (by way of a friendly warning from another tenant who was warning me not to make an enemy of him) that he's part of a county lines/organised crime set up and it's all a very serious business - hence the reluctance of other tenants to speak out.  The harassment ranged from all night parties, groups of men having loud discussions about what happens to nosy b**tches on the landing outside my flat, general rubbish and dog mess by my front door to a masked man trying to rip my video doorbell off the wall in the middle of the night.  We were frightened to go out and frightened to stay in.  Apparently three other sets of tenants had previously left because of him.

I did follow all the advice offered on here as well as advice offered by Shelter.  I went to the police, environmental health and the housing association and sent them dozens of video clips, sound recordings, photographs and written statements, all to no avail.  The police told me that reporting him could make the harassment worse.  As our health deteriorated, we had to keep spending time away from the flat staying with friends and by the December it was clear that no-one was going to do anything about him that was in any way helpful to us.  We started looking for somewhere else to live but it was impossible; the prices are so high that getting somewhere in a half decent area with the sort of facilities that benefit my son (because of his disabilities) on housing benefit was just impossible.  Even when somewhere came up there were dozens of applicants within hours; even a caravan we applied for went less than two hours after it was advertised.

We ended up more or less moving into a local Travelodge; I was suicidal by this point and my son was barely functioning.  It was all absolutely horrendous and I've genuinely never been through anything so dreadful.  In thirty years of renting I'd never experienced anything like that before - annoying neighbours and anti-social behaviour yes, but the blatant drug use and abuse directed towards us is not something I've ever experienced before - nor do I want to again.

The good news is that we did manage to find somewhere new to live, albeit four hundred miles away from where we were before.  We're in a nice flat now (private rental) above a shop and the other flat here is empty at the moment.  I am anxious about someone difficult moving in at some point but it would be very unlucky to experience something like that twice in a row.  We are both slowly getting our health back and getting back on our feet.  The area is nice and meets our needs well and my son is slowly starting to get out more and socialise again which is good.  We are thousands of pounds in debt as I had to put all of our costs from staying away from home and traveling long distances while we tried to find somewhere to live on credit cards but I'm paying it off as quickly as I can and we both feel safe now, which is a real blessing.

Anyway, I was trying to do a brief update but it's still rather long - sorry!  I did just want to let people know how it all ended and to say thank you to all who helped and were kind and supportive.  It was/is much appreciated.

Onwards and upwards and all that, I'm just very grateful that we were able to get away.  Many thanks again.

tryingmybest99

@LocoLoco I'm so sorry to hear that you and your son have gone through such a dreadful time. What happened was incredibly unjust, but you did great to get out and get in a better situation. I hope it's all smooth sailing for you and your son from here on out!

Skiddaw1

Me too OP. It's rotten that you & your son have had to go through so much emotional and financial pain through no fault of your own but I have a strong belief in karma. What goes around comes around eventually.

LocoLoco

tryingmybest99 said:

@LocoLoco I'm so sorry to hear that you and your son have gone through such a dreadful time. What happened was incredibly unjust, but you did great to get out and get in a better situation. I hope it's all smooth sailing for you and your son from here on out!

Thanks, tryingmybest, the unfairness of it all has bothered me a lot but it is what it is, we were lucky that we've got friends, transport and credit cards and we do seem to have ended up in a better situation so fingers crossed.  We're living somewhere now with loads of beautiful countryside walks and it's amazing how calming a nice walk in a beautiful setting can be.  We've met some nice people and the disability services seem to be better here than they were at the last place so it's all looking good.  Thank you.

LocoLoco

Skiddaw1 said:

Me too OP. It's rotten that you & your son have had to go through so much emotional and financial pain through no fault of your own but I have a strong belief in karma. What goes around comes around eventually.

Thanks, Skiddaw, yes I agree, I'm hoping that more will be done about him now (or that we win the lottery! lol). Thank you