We are being evicted, some advice please...... the date has arrived......

Olliebeak

Have you tried talking to your local councillor? If you can find one who is on the 'Housing Committee' - all the better.

That is what these guys are there for! They are your elected representatives - make em work for your vote!

Good Luck with your re-housing!

Mollymop5

Not sure if I'm reading it right.Is it because of the high rental costs in the area or because you won't pass a credit check that you're not going down the private letting route?
Would your mum act as guarantor on a private property? my nephew went into private housing and didn't meet the credit criteria.My dad then stepped in as guarantor.He asked that it was added to the contract that he was notified in the first month if there were any problems.Just to cover his own back.If not your mum then maybe your sister.

blue_monkey_2

Thanks Olliebeak, no not done that yet - will get all my other options together for if they do not give us the correct number of points next week, I need to know what my next step is really after the doctor has been to the council. Letter has been sent this morning via Special Delivery as their doctor is due on Wednesday and I have asked for confirmation of the points award. The thing is, they are welcome to come visit my house to back up all we have stated in our letter and sit with us for an hour or 2 so they can see my son but I guess they won't be bothered by that and we have had to put as much info in the letter.

Mollymop,

It is a bit of both really, if we passed the credit check then we do not earn enough money to rent a place for £750 (this was the first property we found, this is cheap for this area which is why we looked for it, the others we have asked about do cost more than this) but to rent a place for £750 you have to TAKE HOME at least £1750 a month, which we don't so even if we passed the credit check stage we would not get the place because of a low income. if we apply for HB we would get it but they may decide that the rent is too high and will cap the amount of HB - but they will only do this after we have agreed to rent it but we can't find anyone to rent us one to get the HB. See, it is a vicious circle. I am still trying and I am still looking, it is not like I am sitting here saying right, house me today please, if this was the case I would not know these things but I call the letting agents and ask the questions, as a LL on the other board pointed out last night if I lie I'll get found out when the credit check is done, the check costs £150-£200 (that is each check for each Agent) so if I am honest about the situation then I won't be paying that money out for nothing. One the Houses board the other day somoene was mentioning on there that the agent knew he had a bad record told him it would not be a problem but every house he has gone for he has been told someone else with a better rating has come along so the LL wants that person. I have also been told by Letting Agents that LL won't get insurances to cover their tenants unless they get a clear credit score so this is why they want them witha clear scoare as those without one are more likely to default on the rent or tenancy agreement.

There are not a great deal of places available, I think as of this week in the 40 miles radius I mentioned to keep us within this council boundary there are 4, maybe 5, properties under the £1000 a month bracket - and even then we might not get HB as they might say that the house is not 'worth' £100 but only £750 and that we can afford that, so we would have to find the £1000 out of our £1500 a month 'wage' (and we only get that if hubby does O/T otherwise it is £1200 a month) plus council tax, electric and insurances will be another £350 or so. We also have to get permission from the council doctor to rent a 3 bedroom house else we will only get HB for the equivalnt 2 bedroom house. I am frightened for what this means for us. The properties available are the same properties over and over, they are the ones that I saw before Xmas and the people letting them seem to have the properties with 3 or 4 different agents just to be able to let them. Something must be going wrong, is this to do with the credit crunch as well?

My mum won't go up as guarentor and I have 2 sisters and a brother, the 1st sister likewise lives ith my mum and has a low income (she is on the c. list too) the other two wouldn't even p*** on me if I was on fire and if they were millionaires. Families eh, who would have them!!

We don't have anyone else to ask as the rest of the family are pretty much in the same boat, we are just all working class people and don't have money, savings and assetts and stuff like that - the rest are on some form of benefit we are the only ones who aren't. It would be so much easier if we were sadly. I guess we will just have to see what happens and where it goes from here.

We do have another issue, not really addressed before, yes it is embarrassing to admit this, but I am not sure on where the council stand on this and it was only on speaking with a landlord last night I realised it had implications. My son is very destructive, we obviously try not to let him destroy things but he does, I can go to the loo and he has then done something else (he has, for example, drawn on my cream sofa with black permanant marker pen - yes I know, cream what was I thinking, no money to replace it just like that though) where we are he has drawn on walls, doors, knocked holes in plaster, ripped paper from walls, chipped wooden furniture, ripped holes in carpets by picking a bit out and then just pulling, pulling the blinds and they are out of shape, yesterday he shoved loads of loo roll down the toilet and blocked it DD told me he was doing it, I asked him to stop but by the time I had run into the bathroom he had flushed it and was laughing and this was all while I was getting his bedclothes from the draw so I was not in the bathroom, I could go on but you get the picture. It is embarrassing that I have to admit he does these things and it makes me feel like a bad parent , but, short of tying him up and shoving him in the corner you just live with things how they are. If we was in someone elses home we would have to put all these things right to the same standard before we left and before the LL did an inspection - if we was in council or HA property it would not 'matter' as much as everything we put in would be ours and if it was damaged we could do the same as it is now and not bother too much as there would be no leaving date and no inspections, if we did not have to worry we would just shove a sofa or cupboard in front of it until he grows out of this destructive phase (and yes, 4 years on we are still waiting). And we just don't have the time to redecorate every few months, let alone the extra money it would cost. We were about to embark on major redecoration here (even bought the materials to do it) but the Estate Agent actually told us it was not worth it because there is no heating here and people would only have to redecorate after the heating has gone in so it would be pointless as they would no doubt wreck everything we had just done (I have to admit it was a relief when he said that).

We have lived with my son as he is and you just kind of get used it, we don't replace the stuff he damages we just live with it, we just assumed he would grow out of doing stuff like this but so far he has not, we replaced all the pens, crayons and pencils with washable ones and just live with furnishings as they are (TV screen has 3 holes in where he got great enjoyment out of chucking markes at it) and until last night when speaking to a landlord it dawned on me what the implications of living in someone elses house are. I am going to be honest about things, this is the way we have to live, we have been lucky as this has been mums house and because it was a shell she was not actally that bothered if my son made a hole in the plaster or the carpet as we had put them here and we had made it to the standard it was so it was not an issue. I guess these things matter now. This was something I mentioned to the council before mum had even served us our S21 so if she had been listening then she would have realised the problem. I am not sure were we go from here and yes, if I am honest moving into somewhere where we have to put a deposit of 2k down that we know we are going to lose if the landlord arrives and finds my son has taken the carpet up or drawn over the walls fills me with dread because we would be having to use our overdrafts to find that deposit - if I can find a landlord that will take us.

So that is kind of it really, I am not really sure where I go from here in that respect.

debrag

blue_monkey wrote: »

debrag - no-one knows what is going on. She probably won the Spanish Lottery ot something, something very strange is going on and we all have out suspicions, all she will say to people when she asks why they are selling is that she cannot afford to keep the house, yet she does not pay anything, we pay everything, even her life assurance, and instead of a huge rent we maintain it for her as she cannot afford to (new UPVC doors, renovated kitchen, renovated the bathroom, etc...) and it was supposed to be for her retirement and that is 10 years or more away. We were about to embark on total redecoration, which we have now stopped because we will use the stuff we bought for when we eventually get somewhere of our own. It is as much as a mystery today as it was back in November when she asked us to leave but when I asked her if she could hold off on selling until after xmas she called out to her bf in the backgroud 'can we wait until after Xmas' and he paused and said 'yes'. The thing here is that bf has not really had any interest in the property and has always said he would give anything back she left him but it was the way in which she asked him, like they needed a big amount of money for some reason, whatever it is she won't say but they are not people who have fast cars or big holidays, neither has a driving licence or passport and they are just 'locals' (think League of Gentlemen, LOL, sorry it is how it is without sanding nasty) so they have no interest in travelling or the like. It is just all very bizarre. They are quite gulible (mum used to send money to those people who sent letters saying 'send £25 to claim your prize' which would turn out to be a teapot and she would get unindated with letters, i worry they have had one of these letters promising them they have won the lottery but they have to part with money first to access it. It sounds daft but there HAS to be more to this and neither I, or my sister, can put our finger on it. Either way everyone has told me to forget about this for now and concentrate on what is important for today, which is us as a family.

Sounds like they need the momey for something, ho long has she been with her boyfriend? how much do you know about him. I know this won't change anything, it's just very very strange. You need to find out what it is.

Do they have debts, can they afford their house? They prob have people after them for money and don't seem to care how this is affecting you.

blue_monkey_2

Yes, interesting to be honest, hubby mentioned something this morning that might ring true. She has been with him 20+ years now, lived with him for 8 but, ironically it is a 2 bed council flat around the corner. I think he never had any interest in being here with it being my dads old place and all. He is much older than her and retired so on a state pension, mum works all the hours god sends as she can't get benefits if she is ill or unemployed as she has this place as an asset. She has never 'earned' a single penny from this place, we pay her what it costs her per month, we pay council tax and water rates and all the bills and then we pay to maintain it for her (I think I said that already, sorry)

DH mentioned that maybe they had enquired about buying his council flat and she was buying it for him but in both their names as she would be on the tenancy as having been there for so long. It would make sense as to why she asked 'can we wait until after Xmas' it has just been rewired, a new kitchen, bathroom and central heating has been put in and the damp problems they had have been cured and they would be rent and mortgage free so would save money on the rent and still have a 'nest egg' for retirement. So you see, this IS plausible as he has been in the council flat for, maybe, 20 years, possibly more.

No, they don't have debts, they have one CC that we pay for them each month that has a £200 limit. They have basic bank accounts and no bank cards, just cash cards, no overdrafts, etc... they don;t really understand money issues. They would not get loans, etc.. where they are now, he bf has just had a large pension payout (large for him anyway) so debts would be cleared, if she bought anything using this house the paperwork would have to come here so we would see it as I am here for the postie each day. It sounds weird to say but they are just 'village' people that don't have flashy ways of life or big holidays out of the UK (mind you, I do wonder because they spend more down the pub and on lottery than I do on food for my family each week but that is another story!!). But whatever it is she will not discuss it with any of us. If they had people after them for money my sister would be the first to know as she lives with them and - quite frankly - she is nosy and can't keep a secret if world peace depended on it (LOL, yes, she has some MH Issues too it's a family trait that I seemed to escape - or did I?????, LOL) but the buying of the flat would certainly be plausible and they would then still have £100k in the bank and save the rent money each week so would be able to afford to live easily. However, someone would have to have suggested this to them and someone has said something as my mum told me she would have to pay 'capital gain tax or something' which she does not have any idea about (this was before EA visit) but she will not have to pay this as it was the family home for 34 years, so I don;t know who has told her this.

The reason it is 'weird' is because she asked he 'can we wait until after Xmas'. Wait for what...... no-one seems to know! The plot thickens......

debrag

surely with them buying his council place couldn't they hae waited for you to find somewhere first?

tilly's_mum

Hi

Just been reading your thread - hope you get sorted soon. Have you claimed DLA for your son? my friends son had adhd and he gets high rate care and she gets carers allowance.

silvercar

However, someone would have to have suggested this to them and someone has said something as my mum told me she would have to pay 'capital gain tax or something' which she does not have any idea about (this was before EA visit) but she will not have to pay this as it was the family home for 34 years, so I don;t know who has told her this.

If she has not lived in the home as her principal private residence for a number of years she will be liable for CGT on sale. There is no such concept of "family home", either it has been her PPR or it hasn't and if you have been living in it for a number of years without her then it hasn't been her PPR.

silvercar

There seems to be 3 acceptable options:

a) you get a council property in the area you want, with a low enough rent.

b) you get a private property in the area you want and hopefully DLA and HB give you enough money to manage.

c) you find a property that you can afford further afield and commit yourself to school journeys if you can afford this.

Then there are the unacceptable solutions:

d) you take what the council offer and put up with the unsuitable aspects.

e) you look further afield where rent is more affordable and accept that your children will need to go to a different school.

Remembering that any temporary move will require upheavel in the future, I hope that setting things out as I have done helps you to work out the pros and cons of each one.

Personally, the idea of moving to B&B with the problems you have settling your son seems the worst of all worlds and if (a) doesn't happen, I would seriously consider any other solution to resolve the issues and start moving forward, but then I'm impatient.

bonnie_2

I have a lovely 3 bedroomed flat now after being in temporary for 9 months. Years ago.
Whatever you do don't move out till the baliffs forcibly evict you or you'll be deemed intentionaly homeless.
Round here you get temporary for years and have to bid on permanent accomadation has it comes up.
We got extra points for having a disabled child otherwise all 3 children would have been stuck in one bedroom, so i got a 3 bed instead.
Good luck.
It's never as bad as you think.