The Day of Reckoning

Well, the day of reckoning has come and gone and as anticipated, the tenants have not moved out of our house.   They are doing exactly what the housing office has advised them to do and are staying put until they are evicted so that they can jump the queue and get a council/housing association property.  Two parents, six children and two dogs and tens of thousands of pounds in benefits, just sitting pretty while we fork out thousands we can’t afford from our own pocket to have them evicted.

So it now looks certain that we will become homeless as of 31st August 2011.  Although the tenants were served notice on our house back in April, it transpires that the agent served the wrong type of notice, therefore the solicitor could not apply to court for a possession order.  In turn, we have had to get the solicitor to serve the correct Section 21 Notice and so we now have to wait another two calendar months before we can apply for the possession order.   We can’t even begin to build a case against the estate agent as we have to be back in the property and have full details of our losses before the solicitor can begin proceedings.

I have written to the ward councillor of our house but he was unable to get anywhere with the housing office.  I have now contacted the councillor responsible for housing and the local MP but I’m not holding my breath.   I suppose it will have to be the press next.

What a shocking state of affairs it is that people are actually being advised to squat in a house by their local authority.  These people are privately renting now, have done for years and there is no reason why they couldn’t continue to do so… it’s not as if they actually pay the rent themselves, it’s all paid by the housing benefit department!  But they have decided that they want local authority housing, so my family has to suffer.

None of this is our fault.  Stephen couldn’t help getting ill and the only way he can remain employed is by going back to Essex to the office.  I have four children and a recently disabled husband but WE don’t qualify for any help and nobody is even vaguely interested in our plight.  The council in Essex actually told us to do the same thing as our tenants are and claim that we were homeless to our local council!

Totally outrageous!!!

I will keep updating on the situation, but I have to be careful what I say for when it all goes to court.