Advice Needed Tenant Eviction Scotland

adamapple

I have a tenant who's been living in my property for almost 4 years. She's now struggling to pay the rent and want's a council house. The council has advised her they'll only consider her for a house if she's evicted, which I've had no reason to do. The tenant has now stopped paying the rent and it looks like she want's me to evict her. I've never had to evict anyone and haven't the foggiest on where to start with this process and what costs I'll face to achieve this in Scotland.  

Any advice appreciated.

oldernonethewiser

https://www.mygov.scot/tell-your-tenant-they-need-to-leave

Does this help?

theartfullodger

Done any training in how to be a landlord?  If not, Sal & LAS run good courses .

Usually cheaper than the alternative.

If she's been missing or late on rent what notices have you served please?

Keep_pedalling

If the tenant is not paying in order to get evicted won’t that be classed as deliberately making her self homeless and means her cunning plan to get a council house will fail?

adamapple

theartfullodger said:

Done any training in how to be a landlord?  If not, Sal & LAS run good courses .

Usually cheaper than the alternative.

If she's been missing or late on rent what notices have you served please?

I haven't served any notices as yet, she's now almost 2 months in arrears, having paid, 2 weeks rent in 2 months.   

Keep_pedalling said:

If the tenant is not paying in order to get evicted won’t that be classed as deliberately making her self homeless and means her cunning plan to get a council house will fail?

There's a couple of things at play here:

Firstly she's claiming her universal credit payment isn't due till middle of next month so can't pay anything till then. She does have a full time job too, but says she's currently off for depression. 

Secondly, she mentioned that the council told her not paying the rent was a easy way to get evicted.
 

sheramber

She may not get a house. More likely she could be put in temporary accommodation.

deannagone

Yes, its a direction only the truly desperate go.  Whatever the person at the council said, when her housing application is assessed, what her income is and how she spent it will be looked at (they will look at if she could have paid rent with proper budgeting rather than frippering it away on non essential items).

And as has been said, she has to qualify for housing, has to have lived in area long enough (differs from council to council so she needs to check), and will likely end up in a one room hostel.  Councils can also place someone in a completely different borough if they find an area with cheaper temporary accommodation options. Some do this, some don't (she needs to ask housing what their policy is with temporary accommodation or look on the borough's housing needs website), She can also be moved from one temp accommodation to another with little notice.  And temporary accommodation is not nice, and can contain a lot of other people with vulnerabilities like mental health difficulties and/or addiction issues Because these people need housing.  When I lived in temporary housing, there were a lot of noisy disruptions from other people in temporary accommodation.  I also moved into a place that was dirty and had thousands of cockroach carcasses, the infestation hadn't been completely dealt with.  We had to live with the critters appearing for a couple of months which wasn't pleasant. I did my best to keep my children calm and settled, but it was a lot of work all the time we were in temporary accommodation (18 months, we were lucky to be moved into permanent so quickly, I spoke to others who'd been there three years).  There were also moving costs to cover at short notice (I was given two weeks to move from temporary to permanent accommodation and you may need to store furnishings if assigned to one room accommodation).  If any pets, alternative housing will need to be found for them, temporary accommodation won't allow them.

_Penny_Dreadful

adamapple said:

I have a tenant who's been living in my property for almost 4 years. She's now struggling to pay the rent and want's a council house. The council has advised her they'll only consider her for a house if she's evicted, which I've had no reason to do. The tenant has now stopped paying the rent and it looks like she want's me to evict her. I've never had to evict anyone and haven't the foggiest on where to start with this process and what costs I'll face to achieve this in Scotland.  

Any advice appreciated.

Presumably the tenant has a Private Rental Tenancy. This means you require a ground to evict her and at present there isn’t a ground you can use.  Ground 17 requires the tenant to have been in rent arrears for 3 consecutive months at the time the Notice to Leave is served and you have to have followed the pre-action protocol for arrears. 

However, due to the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 you can issue the Notice to Leave, be granted an Eviction Order by the FTT but you cannot enforce the order until 1st April 2024. An exception to this is when the tenant owes substantial rent arrears of 6 months rent or more.