Mum and four kids housed 30 miles away in studio apartment after Brent Council told them to ‘wait for bailiffs to evict them’
Posted by insomnimax_99
Mum and four kids housed 30 miles away in studio apartment after Brent Council told them to ‘wait for bailiffs to evict them’
Posted by insomnimax_99
14 Comments
Surely getting emergency/temporary housing should be a last resort and not a right to something good? As it’s just meant to put a roof over your head.
That’s standard procedure – what was she expecting a 4 bed and garden with a river running through it? There are people working full time that can’t afford to rent a studio flat that are subsidising hers. I’d move 100 miles for a free flat
Interestingly:
> “The Code of Guidance says a council should not require an applicant to remain in the property until a court issues a warrant or writ to enforce a possession order. The council should have provided interim accommodation to Mrs X before this happened.”
Kinda surprised to find this out, seeing as pretty much every council will tell people to remain in their properties until they are served with a possession order and evicted by bailiffs. Otherwise they class you as “voluntarily homeless” and offer very little support. Seems like every council is getting it wrong then.
Edit: The guidance:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67add3246e6c8d18118acd2f/Current_Homelessness_Code_of_Guidance_13_February_2025.pdf#page49
>6.35 The Secretary of State considers that where an applicant is:
>a. an assured shorthold tenant who has received a valid notice in accordance with section 21 of the Housing Act 1988;
>b. the housing authority is satisfied that the landlord intends to seek possession and further efforts from the housing authority to resolve the situation and persuade the landlord to allow the tenant to remain in the property are unlikely to be successful; and,
>c. there would be no defence to an application for a possession order;
>then it is unlikely to be reasonable for the applicant to continue to occupy beyond the expiry of a valid section 21 notice, unless the housing authority is taking steps to persuade the landlord to allow the tenant to continue to occupy the accommodation for a reasonable period to provide an opportunity for alternative accommodation to be found.
>6.36 The Secretary of State considers that it is highly unlikely to be reasonable for the applicant to continue to occupy beyond the date on which the court has ordered them to leave the property and give possession to the landlord.
>__6.37 Housing authorities should not consider it reasonable for an applicant to remain in occupation up until the point at which a court issues a warrant or writ to enforce an order for possession.__
Paragraphs 6.17-6.19 and 6.23 are also relevant here.
“In November 2023, Brent Council offered Mrs X the opportunity to join a list for housing outside of London, however, due to her children’s schools and her role as a carer for her parents and another child close to home she explained that this was not suitable. The council awarded Mrs X a band C priority in February 2024 and noted that a three-bedroom property was now needed as one of the children had moved out.”
It’s not like they didn’t have other options available before they got evicted. Typical case of chancers who tried to squeeze out the best deal for themselves.
Reminds me of the phrase… *”Beggers can’t be choosers”*.
If they want stability in location, start a 10-15 year plan where you go through college, maybe university, take a low paid graduate role for 5-8 years before you get the vocational experience, then command experienced £50-60k “big-bucks”.
Meanwhile, you have people in council housing that have a much improved situation from when they first applied, and could afford to pay market rent or buy, blocking housing for those genuinely in need. System is a shambles.
This is the issue with the housing benefits. People aren’t desperate for a home, they are desperate for luxury which they don’t have to work for. People earning upwards on 60-70k per year can barely afford to live comfortably in London, meanwhile a single mother or a family of 7 gets a free house they pay change for…
On the one hand, 30 miles is not a huge hardship and it is insane that not working gives you a free flat in a place few can afford.
On the other hand this is essentially a council turfing out problems onto another council.
The problem with the advice the councils all over the country are giving out, is that if it is a high court judgment, IE high court bailiffs, they can turn up WITHOUT NOTICE at any time to immediately kick you out of the property.
Which means that individuals like this stay until one sunny random day, they have 20 minutes to pack a bag and legally be gone.
Ontop of that, councils do not have the resources to re-home everyone that needs it.
We give out too much money, whilst causing the cost of living to be so high that people cannot survive on minimum wage.
You either make a good living which is enough to scrape by or you fall into a system that will not rescue you and punishes you for trying to climb back out.
Ontop of that, i fail to see why people renting out properties would agree to take on people on benefits when that income is unreliable and when there is clear evidence of a lack of payment. Where is the incentive?
We need to cut benefits, we need to lower the cost of living, we need to cut taxes on small businesses. We need to make healthy foods tax free and increase taxes on sugars.
We need to destroy the energy lobby, give more powers to ofwat and ban cross pollination of staff between ofwat and the energy companies. We need to nationalise the water companies. Nationalise rail companies.
We need to outsource standard medical procedures at COST EFFECTIVE rates to specialist contractors (BUT ONLY IF THE GOVERNMENT CAN HIRE STAFF COMPETENT ENOUGH TO DO THE COST:BENEFIT ANALYSIS AND WRITE THE CONTRACTS PROPERLY) otherwise we’ll pay 3x what should cost us 1.5x
Don’t get it. She was given a section 21 because the owner wanted to sell. So, that means she was paying rent for a property for herself and her 4 kids (sans one who has now moved out). As per council’s advise, she stayed in the property until she was evicted, and then was put in a studio flat. For what reason did she not try and find another place to rent privately?
She got free accommodation within a short journey of where she ideally wanted to live, how the fuck is this not enough? Getting compensation for not being given nice enough free stuff is ridiculous. Loads of people move a lot further than 30 miles for financial reasons – quite a lot of people commute 30 miles a day because they can’t afford to live in the middle of London either, why should someone without anywhere near enough money to afford it be put up there for free ahead of them?
According to the article she was also offered a property more in line with her wishes but she turned it down because of ‘safety concerns’ i.e. she didn’t like it enough.
There aren’t swathes of empty houses for people to be given, especially in London – that’s what happens when you have high net immigration so there are more people trying to get into the same housing. Giving this woman a house means someone else already on the list doesn’t get one.
Always easy to spot the Daily Heil readers on threads like this.
Not a terrible outcome in a part of the country with one of the highest real estate prices and I say this as an Ealing local
Rent and property prices have gone beyond crazy. Since Covid rent has doubled in London and much of the South of U.K. The government needs to regulate the rental market. There is no limit to human greed especially the greed of property pimps, private equity and landlord industrial complex. The free market is driving us to live in overcrowded slums, once again as the ultra wealthy are buying up all the houses down South as assets and renting them out to the poor. We thought we had seen the last of this level of inequality -Victorian/ Dickensian poverty we need “rent control” Now.