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9:15 AM, 8th August 2023, About 9 months ago 36
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Hello, I am approaching 70 and I issued my tenant with a letter to vacate the property on the 22nd of February 2023. I did not give a time frame but just to let the tenant know what my intentions were.
On receiving the letter my tenant decided that he was going to apply for a council property. He is an ex-serviceman and also very ill as he suffered from PTSD as a paratrooper for many years.
My tenant was assigned an adviser from the Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust which deals with homeless issues. My tenant met with the adviser who has been a great support and a good point of contact for me if I had any concerns or issues.
My tenant contacted me informing what documentation was required by myself to start the application process for accommodation for him.
The documentation I was asked for is as follows:
By Easter, I was advised by my tenant that the mental health trust adviser had all the documents that he needed to forward to Solihull Housing for his application to be processed. The tenant will then be issued his PIN number to bid or express an interest in a home.
This is where everything went wrong.
The first contact I had with Solihull Housing was a telephone call on the 23rd of May asking me to supply the Section 21 notice as the dates did not marry up and part of the form was missing. I was not best pleased as I had given everything to the adviser by email. The council seemed to care more about following procedures rather than my tenant’s health!
I contacted the mental health adviser and asked what the problem was but he had no idea and confirmed that everything had been sent over.
I kept asking my tenant if he had received his pin number. The answer was no.
I placed the property with the estate agents mid-May and agreed to a sale 2 weeks later to a FTB. I informed my tenant of the agreed sale and said it would be the end of July before the sale would be complete. He still did not have his pin number.
I received another call from someone at Solihull Housing on Wednesday 7th June to say that my tenant was not getting his pin number as I had not started repossession procedures.
They said that if my tenant left the property of his own validation then he would go to the bottom of the housing queue. They said I had to follow procedure and apply for repossession at a cost of £375 and then wait for the bailiffs to evict him.
The sale was still progressing but no movement regarding the pin number.
I got another call on 1st August from Solihull Housing saying that they needed the section 21 form as all they had was my letter dated 22nd February. I was angry because I had sent the documents again to the mental health adviser as a precaution.
Solihull Housing said again that I had to apply for repossession to get my tenant out and to follow procedure.
The person said that they have told my tenant not to leave the property and that he had to be evicted. Solihull Housing asked for the Estate Agent’s details as they said they were going to contact them and tell them that he would not be leaving the property!!
By this time I was very agitated and rang my tenant’s mental health adviser immediately and told them of the situation.
The adviser confirmed that I had on several occasions sent all the paperwork. The adviser said they would contact someone they had dealings with at Solihull Housing and get the matter sorted.
The adviser told me my tenant should have received his pin number two months ago!!!
I rang my tenant late afternoon on Wednesday 2nd August told him the situation and said that he had to vacate the property by the 11th August as that was the exchange day for the sale.
Within an hour of our telephone conversation, the tenant received his pin number.
This was an appalling stressful and inefficient service as it has taken 5 months to get this far. I hope my tenant will get a home so he can recover and I can complete my sale.
Thanks for reading.
Editors Note: You can find Property118 investigation on councils telling tenants to stay put here
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Ma'at Housing Solutions
12:56 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Midland Property at 09/08/2023 - 12:08
And this is precisely the type of actions I wholeheartedly approve of Landlords taking against these unlawful local authorities!
Bravo and well done! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Rachel Wilks
13:43 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Councils will always advise not vacating if you have nowhere to go.
It is called making yourself deliberately homeless in which case they then are not obliged to help.
If you make yourself deliberately homeless, whether you are evicted from a rental or a mortgaged (in your own name) property you fall foul of this and are then denied access to local authority help.
Instead of blaming local authorities, perhaps try lobbying to have the regulations surrounding social housing changed.
Maureen Urquhart
15:12 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Chris @ Possession Friend at 08/08/2023 - 13:38
Good afternoon Chris. We l8ve in Scotland and we gave our tenant, the statutory 84 days notice . When my tenant went to see the local housing officer, she was informed, that she would not get a house for 4000 days. Yes 4000 days. They even asked her to bring in the notice to leave to see if they could find grounds to reject it. But they were out of luck.
But they also told the tenant NOT TO LEAVE AND MAKE US TAKE HER TO THE TRIBUNAL HERE IN SCOTLAND.
WITH NO EVICTIONS TILL MARCH 2024.
ITS UNBELIEVABLE WE MUST STICK TO THE LETTERS OF LEGISLATION, BUT THEY CAN DO WHAT EVER THEY LIKE.
C-cider
16:46 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Ma'at Housing Solutions at 08/08/2023 - 16:24
Most documents are only required at the start of the tenancy e.g., Right to Rent and EPC.
The law requires the landlord to keep the CP12 Gas Safety Records for two years.
Buffoons in the Council and in the Courts don’t help.
Ma'at Housing Solutions
16:50 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Rachel Wilks at 09/08/2023 - 13:43
I can assure you as a former local authority housing officer for many years, that local authorities who simply advise tenants to remain until bailiff eviction, once they have validated the S21 or s8 Notice Requiring/ Seeking Possession ARE flouting their STATUTORY duty to PREVENT the homelessness in accordance with the Homeless Reduction Act 2017.
By advising tenants to remain whilst taking no actions to prevent the homelessness and insisting that the tenant(s) would be making themselves intentionally homeless thereby scare mongering them to remain and ostracizing private sector landlords by these behaviours, these local authorities find themselves being taken to court pursuant to a JR/ Judicial Review.
Unfortunately as you have demonstrated, all too often in these scenarios Landlords and Tenants simply believe what the local authority will tell them, which at best can be incorrect at worst unlawful.
Both Landlords and Tenants need to familiarize themselves with their legal position regarding their respective rights and responsibilites.
Chris @ Possession Friend
17:22 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Maureen Urquhart at 09/08/2023 - 15:12
Contact me directly by email Maureen and we'll arrange to speak.
Shamara Gayle
18:08 PM, 9th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Councils have been advising tenants to wait for bailiffs for decades. They say otherwise, the tenant has made themselves 'intentionally homeless'.
Mick Roberts
7:44 AM, 10th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Ma'at Housing Solutions at 09/08/2023 - 16:50
You say this very good:
ostracizing private sector landlords by these behaviours
As they help this current tenant short term, but next time make it much worse for themselves the Council, & the tenants they have waiting cause us Landlords remember this & talk to other Landlords & we then don't take Council referrals cause we know we won't be helped out when we need it.
Ma'at Housing Solutions
8:38 AM, 10th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Shamara Gayle at 09/08/2023 - 18:08
Indeed. But unless Landlords actually learn for themselves exactly what the legislation says they will continue to be led by the nose by unscrupulous and inept councils!
Smiffy
8:54 AM, 10th August 2023, About 9 months ago
Personally, I think we as landlords have got this all wrong and this is a classic case.
The original poster is selling up, siting their age as the reason. Now expecting to terminate a tenancy agreement, turfing the tenant out with 2 months notice through no fault of their own..
Yes the AST and the law technically allows this, but is it morally right if the tenant has done nothing wrong? I don't think it is.
What we should be doing is offering these properties that we are finished with, tenanted, into the landlord industry either by auction or by a dedicated estate agent.
Selling tenanted cuts out all this S21 BS, probably ends up less stressful, less expensive and maybe quicker.
We need to re-think