Is this council letter to tenant legal?

Reply to the comment left by paul bell at 27/06/2024 – 13:23
I am hearing it is, I have been listening to homelessness best practise on you tube, he has loads of lawyers in there, and this is in fact illegal.

I understand your concerns. Yes, this is legal. Your landlord must follow the proper legal process to evict you: issuing a Section 21 notice, obtaining a Possession Order, and finally, a Bailiffs Warrant. Until all these steps are completed, you have the legal right to stay in your property.

The advice not to vacate until all notices are served is sound because leaving early could be seen as making yourself intentionally homeless, which could affect your ability to get assistance.

Just make sure you have alternative, suitable accommodation lined up before you move. If you need more detailed advice, consider speaking to a legal advisor.

Reply to the comment left by Southern Boyuk at 27/06/2024 – 12:09
I would advise caution on advising that not leaving (with no other grounds, such as non-payment of rent, etc) will lead to impact on credit rating; or even that they ‘will’ be liable for court costs (unless your AST states this, otherwise say ‘might’). Being misleading could give weight to any other defences.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 27/06/2024 – 09:29We are adding 1.5 gallon of water in 1 gallon container. England cannot sustain such unexpected rise in people number and yet maintain the same quality of life.

The one point I pick up on is the duty of care. Once engaged the council have an obligation to be open about the impacts of their advice. I remain very interested in what liability the council would then assume from distributing this “advice”. I’m not sure how it would work legally but I suspect you would take the issue to civil court to recover losses and then it would be up to the tenant to prove that the breach of the duty of care caused the loss which would then open a secondary claim from a LL against the council. I suspect the expense of such litigation prevents it and my curiosity isn’t enough to pay for a barristers opinion.

Hi All and especially Debbie,
The issue I was previously making in reference to possibly sueing Newham (County Court) was in connection with their possible breach of care to Landlords in advising Tenants to stay put pending actual eviction, least they be deemed to have made themselves Homeless and lose out on re-housing.
To progress this, I will need to show that this is common practice by Newham which is why I was after responses from anyone who has similar experiences.
Pete Kessler

S8 is generally better. Unlike s21, u can add Court costs and rent arrears to Possession Order. Tenant then knows that bailiffs are coming, not just to evict them, but also to get money from them, seize goods etc. This is usually an incentive for them to move out ASAP.

And people wonder why tenants can’t get houses any more.
If we could get rid easy FOR WHATEVER reason (but generally it is bad tenant), then we’d be more inclined to take anyone.
The more Councils do this, the more they gonna struggle next time to ask us to house and help their tenants.

What authority have these Councils got to tell people to ignore an order of the court to vacate a property on or before a date endorsed on the order?
It is Contempt of Court. No dispute about that.
Perhaps you could “advise” the council accordingly.
This is not a new issue – it has a long history and although I have sympathy with you I cannot ignore the fact that a few months ago a LL on here was prepared to launch an application for Judicial Review on the subject. He set up a crowd funding site . I contributed as indeed he did. Nobody else did so it never progressed.
The malaise is deep.
Carchester

Reply to the comment left by Carchester at 29/06/2024 – 08:03
Agreed. However the only way to stop these Councils is to hit them where it hurts being their pockets. This is why I am reaching out to everyone to see whether they have had direct experience of Councils (especially Newham) telling Tenants to stay put pending actual eviction. The more evidence of this, the more likely the success there will be in Court, the greater the Legal Precedance etc.
Todate, I have not had any responses/evidence at all from this Group.