19:35 PM, 30th December 2011, About 13 years ago 20
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When a tenant has a beef with their landlord, I’m the guy they go to. My job is to either negotiate or prosecute, depending on the circumstances. This occasional and random series aims to let landlords know the common complaints that are made about them, the laws that cover them and how to deal with it.
“I have served my tenant with a section 21, I sent her to the homelessness unit but they have told her to wait for a possession order”
Oh my word I cant tell you how many times I get complaints from landlords on this one.
As we all know there is no defence to a section 21 claim. Once the fixed term of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy runs out and a section 21 notice has been served a possession order is guaranteed (presuming the paperwork is in order) and comes out in the post without a court hearing.
If the tenant cant defend it what is the point of going the full distance right? And if the tenant is also eligible to be rehoused by the council’s homelessness team (kids, pregnancy, physical or mental health problems usually) then why is a landlord forced through the hoops when the council has to pick her up in the end anyway? Surely they are just being difficult for the sake of it.
Sorry but no they aren’t. the law on homelessness applications is huge and tortuous….I know…..I have it teach it to councils. It is dominated by an ever changing raft of complex case laws and, increasingly these days, human rights challenges to homelessness decisions.
You also need to factor in that the department for Communities and Local Government and the relevant audit teams monitor statistics that are sent to the CLG every single week for scrutiny. They are called ‘P1E’s and are the bane of the homelessness unit manager’s life.
I spent some time as the head of homelessness for West Wiltshire District Council and I had to fill these bloody things in weekly, fortnightly, monthly and quarterly, showing how many people we had picked up, how many we had placed in temporary accommodation and what ethnic background, family status, health problems each of them came with.
All of these results are scrutinized by civil servants looking to jump on your back when you do something you shouldn’t.
Apart from the very cautious attitude to picking people up there are some very specific laws that the homelessness units use to determine whether someone is legally ‘Homeless’.
I wont bore you with the full definition, because there are many categories of legal homelessness, not just sleeping on the street, I’ll just examine the ones that relate to our context here.
Serving a section 21 notice does not end a tenant’s legal right to occupy. A notice of any kind, and there are many notices for different types of tenancy, not just section 21, is simply the first stage of an eviction process. If a tenant moves out when the notice expires everything is hunky dory but if they don’t, or simply cant for a variety of reasons, then the landlord is obliged by law to get a possession order.
And there is the sticking point for councils, until the possession order is issued the tenant still has a legal right to occupy, therefore they aren’t homeless within the definition of Part VII of the Housing Act 1996, so the council cannot treat them as a homeless case. If they did it would be picked up on the P1Es and the government would jump on the council’s back.
Threatened homeless in the next 28 days.
A notice on it’s own doesn’t make a person threatened with homelessness, a possession order or a warrant of eviction performs that legal function.
If there is a court hearing coming up, then the date of the hearing is not the date a person becomes threatened with homelessness because court cases can be adjourned for a variety of reasons and a tenant could defeat a landlord’s claim in any number of ways, even section 21 claims are not done-deals until possession is granted by the judge.
If a judge issues a possession order they will usually put a date of possession on it, often 28 days, and that is what the council is looking for to fulfill this requirement. Similarly if a landlord already has possession and has gone back for a warrant the council would have to open a case.
Note that they aren’t required by law necessarily to provide temporary accommodation while they are investigating, so for instance if a tenant is threatened homeless within the next 28 days, in other words the landlord has a possession order, the council will open a case and carry out investigations but still leave the tenant in the property while they do so, because, as you should all know, a landlord cant just evict a tenant on a possession order alone, they must first obtain a warrant of eviction.
Putting people in Bed & Breakfast hotels, hostels or other temporary accommodation, or ‘T.A’ as it is known, costs a fortune and there are obviously limited spaces, so council’s will only do this when absolutely necessary.
My unit in inner London has around 100 homeless applicants every single day through it’s doors on average, they all come with tragic stories and they all want to be re-housed. If we ignored the rules and picked up every case that came through the door we literally wouldn’t last to the end of the week.
We have to say ‘No’ more than we say ‘Yes’, and to do this we need to nit-pick on legal issues and this results in sit-ins and visits from the police. Our security staff wear stab vests, feelings run high in homelessness.
Also, forgetting the law for a minute and lets look at what the annoyed landlord is asking a homelessness unit to do.
A landlord lets a property to a tenant, it is a both a business and legal arrangement for which the landlord (in theory) makes a profit, that is why they do it.
If that business arrangement goes wrong, through a nightmare tenant, or the landlord simply has other plans, such as selling the property then why should the council be expected to use public money to bail them out of their problem?
And yet these expectations get thrown at us all the time. When we send the tenants back with the bad news we get angry phone calls from landlords and even illegal evictions.
You will get different approaches in certain cases based on their specific circumstances and the resources available. Rural homelessness units differ from inner city ones, but having said that, although a rural unit will see far fewer people in a week they also have less places to put them so it usually balances out in terms of pressure on the service.
So next time you feel that the council are being obstructive and difficult just for the sake of it, bear in mind that they are trapped between a very strict set of laws and the number of people making homelessness applications.
In an ideal world homelessness units would be able to work more closely with landlords to find common sense solutions, in fact many are but there is a limit to what can be done, for all of the reasons I mention above and with homelessness on the increase (Leeds City Council recently reported a 200% increase in the past 2 years) things will only get worse.
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Ben Reeve-Lewis
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Sign Up18:54 PM, 3rd January 2012, About 13 years ago
Blimey there are so many points here I don’t know where to start.
I’ll try to explain how it works from the council’s end.
If someone fits the 5 tests of homelessness then the council has a statutory (legal) duty to provide accommodation. Before 1996 it had to be a social tenancy, since 1996 it can be a private tenancy but it must be acceptable to the homeless applicant (A qualifying offer). When the Localism Act comes in, probably April the qualifying offer will be abolished. Which in real terms means, Person claims homeless, council says not homeless coz John Smith has a property he can offer you. Applicant says no, council says, “Duty discharged – on yer bike, close the door on your way out”. You can only think where this is headed.
If someone approaches a council for rehousing and gets through the net then the council must, by law provide it. Traditionally Councils set up private lets and then wash their hands of it. We have to do this, we don’t have the resources to hand-hold our placements. However I acknowledge that this won’t work if we want PRS landlords to work with us.
The government has slackened the rules governing how councils build partnerships with PRS landlords, but ‘Discretion’ is the key word here. Every council will work differently and the way they work, certainly in these early days, will be based on the imagination and innovation of the people working the team. You will find teams who can’t break out of their traditional ‘Yes Minister’ roles and those of us who will grasp the entrepreneurial nettle and won’t let old rules stand in the way.
Paul you said “am I being a little naive here in thinking the govt wants to provide accommodation for everyone!?”….yes you are haha. I am utterly convinced that the government doesn’t give a toss about the PRS or homelessness. They are using notions of the Big Society and Localism to wash their hands of problems they don’t know how to handle.
The genius in their approach is that it leaves us who work in the housing world to work out solutions without government interference. In that way Camo is a more effective Tory than Thatcher ever was. I don’t think it’s because our present government are clever, I think it’s because they lack any real imagination at all, the result of which is that are at least getting out of our way.
I am a council man, I know and understand the bureaucracy. I am also a housing law guy, I train it, I train lawyers and council staff and I see where we can meet in the middle, bypassing all the BS that is placed in our way. I collect decent landlords. We don’t have to agree, I can see where we are coming from in our online conversations. What I do genuinely think, and what actually excites me, is that between us we can change the way things are done and build something that suits everyone.
Just someone, please take Grant Shapps out and drown him…………….
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Sign Up0:50 AM, 5th January 2012, About 13 years ago
Absolutely Ben; and I think it is good of you to explain the machinations of the system; which if it's complex for you as a professional; what about the poor old private landlord!!
Clearly as we have discussed the solution is a massive social housing building programme.
For some reason the govt would rather invest in bailing the bankers out; who then sit on the money.
This rather than invest in the capital structure which is most missing in the UK and that is affordable social housing for RENT!!
In absence of this as you say they have completely abrogated their responsibilities by dumping it on you and the PRS.
This will never achieve the object of housing everybody!
You would of thought that investing in social housing could be a vote winner; out Labouring, Labour!
The last time this happened MacMillan was in charge of a Tory govt!!
Ben Reeve-Lewis
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Sign Up10:01 AM, 5th January 2012, About 13 years ago
Yeah couldnt agree more. Conservatives have an entrenched negative attitude towards social housing, the flip side being the obssession with homeownership.
When the right to buy was last championed by thatchers government, everybody went for it and the first to go were the desirable places in the desirable areas which effectively ghetto-ised remaining council tenants who didnt buy and now contributes towards the idea that social tenants are trouble.
Back in the 1980s attitudes were very different and I knew many older tenants who wouldnt buy because they believed in the ethos of social housing, remembering the role it had played in the years following world war 2.
Part of my job is also to negotiate with lenders to stop repossessions and I meet many homeowners who werent tempramentally prepared for it and who would now rather give it away and go back to being a tenant. I have to explain how things have changed since they jumped on the ladder.
What continues to amaze me, being based in our homelessness unit, is the still widely held belief that if a person is born and brought up in the area they will get a council house. When we give them a reality check things kick off.
I'm not against the right to buy per se or even homeownership but we also desperately need social housing for all those who cant, or wont buy. Many social tenants do come with social problems but nowhere near as many as people believe
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Sign Up19:44 PM, 5th January 2012, About 13 years ago
What annoys me Ben is the complete indifference and denial for the financial loss to the former landlord.
It seems to mater not a jot to the homelessness unit that the homeless person/s be treated to a nice new home with the former landlords money in their pocket. Its not even as if its hearsay as the possession order is evidence of wrongdoing financial or otherwise.
The point made earlier with regard to HA being paid direct to the landlord would be the first good step towards reducing the homeless population.
Ben Reeve-Lewis
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Sign Up9:16 AM, 6th January 2012, About 13 years ago
Sorry to sound ruthless Mark but there is an indifference and quite rightly so really, the landlord’s loss is no concern of the homelessness unit whose job it is to deal with homelessness not patch up broken business deals.
If a tenant leaves owing the landlord money this is taken into account as a possible cause of what is called ‘intentional homelessness’ (the 4th test that is applied to an applicant) where a person loses their home as a result of something they have done or failed to do. If an intentionality decision is arrived at then the homeless applicant is refused help, so ripping off the landlord isn’t without its perils for the tenant.
Every homelessness unit in the country makes very many intentionality decisions in a year. But intentionality is a matter for homelessness investigations, not for getting money back for the landlord.
Nobody twists a landlords arm to enter into a business relationship with their tenant and landlords, when trying to get rid of nightmare tenants shouldnt be complaining that the council isn’t stepping in and using what is after all their council tax money to solve their business problems for them.
For my part I am in the middle to an extent. I am based in the homelessness unit but not as an investigator but a prosecutor of landlords for harassment and illegal evictions, but I see my role as more of a homelessness preventer really and the best way to do that is to work with landlords and tenants to sort problems out. This is quite rare and most people in my line of work don’t look at it that way
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Sign Up11:19 AM, 3rd May 2013, About 12 years ago
I have given my tenent a section 21 notice and he is still refusing to leave. I believe that the Housing people are advising to wait in situ for an eviction order. My husband and I have worked hard all our lives for what we have. You sound as if you think just because we make a profit, we should be treated like a criminal. IT IS NOT MY PROBLEM THAT THIS MAN CANNOT PAY HIS RENT. HE decided to go to the council NOT ME. The stress this is causing is huge!!!!! I have suffered a very severe case of Bells Palsy in the past because of severe stress. BUT then again I am only the landlord?
Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118
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Sign Up16:00 PM, 3rd May 2013, About 12 years ago
Hi Pamela
I feel your pain, I've been in this situation myself.
Help is at hand though.
Please see the Legal section of the website towards the header. If you hover over where it says legal you will see a drop down menu. Please take a look at the No Win No Fee Debt Collection service and the Tenant Eviction page.
Alternatively, click these links:-
No Win No Fee Debt Collection >>> http://www.property118.com/index.php/debt-collection-for-landlords-no-win-no-fee/38229/
Tenant Eviction >>> http://www.property118.com/index.php/tenant-eviction/39099/
Katherine Box
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Sign Up23:56 PM, 14th June 2014, About 11 years ago
I havent read all the comments. I rented out my home to move for a job. my tenant who passed all checks as my property is managed by a lettings company. then my tenant and the other adult on the tenancy agreement stopped paying. we had the agent issue the notice to leave and today they did not leave. i have a husband and a 3 yr old girl. i cannot afford to rent a property to live in and pay my mortgage on the home i cannot legally access. thus at the end of this week my family and i become homeless. my husband and i both work.
where do i go to get housing as i am now homeless. my tenants have such rental arrears now that they are using this system to be evicted so they can be rehoused by the local authority. they have used the system and have been advised to do so by the local authority to ensure that they don't have to work, behave honestly or ethically. i am now homeless. i have no where to store my furniture and possessions unless i can use the garages of friends and family which are not secure. our contract only allowed us to move for job opportunities which we must now leave to come home. we have made a loss every month because our rent where we moved is more than our mortgage, which is only covered by the tenants when they choose to pay. in terms of the money not paid to us in rent, this is nothing in addition to the costs now for trying to find storage for our house full of furniture. in addition to these costs there is hiring vehicles to move our stuff more than once. We have only one option which is to live all three of us in someone's spare room....but for how long? so what about me how do i prevent my homelessness?!
Daniele Pinheiro
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Sign Up17:56 PM, 3rd August 2015, About 9 years ago
Hi all, I'm having big problems getting my council tenant to move out of my property in Kent.
I rented it out via a local estate agent in 2009 when I separated and wasn't able to keep up with my mortgage payments and had to go back to my parent's house. My first problem started when I found out that the estate agent was keeping my rent instead of passing it on to me, this was both the council payment and also the part that the tenant made up for the rent, so I had to get rid of him and the council started paying me directly, which by then was 100% of the rent. Everything was going smoothly so I decided to move countries for a few years and left things as they were, at some point in 2014 I noticed that the payment the council normally made to me had been lowered but thought it was a temporary thing and ended up not taking much notice of it as I wasn't in the country and found it difficult to get hold of the council.
When I got back to the UK, I tried renting a property for myself and my son in London but was refused due to the fact of being away for over 4 years and only having started a new job, so my only option was to ask for my house back to have somewhere decent to live with 8-year-old boy, that's when the problems started. I served 2 months notice, tenant didn't leave, I then found out that she should have been making up for the rent and now owed me over £3.000,00 so after lots of trying I decided to go to court and get an eviction order with lawyers and had a hearing today, only to find out that the tenant had showed up in court with a receipt book stating that she had been making monthly payments to "one of my brothers" (I only have one brother) and described physically my brother, who she knows what he looks likes, but couldn't name him, said the payments were made to a person known as E.F., I have no idea who this imaginary person is, nor has she ever given my actual brother, William, any money. I now have to proof that E.F. is no way related to me, nor does he represent me in any way in order to move forward in court.
I really can't understand how the council thinks they have the right to tell people to stay in a property that is not theirs and that they have no right over, how can they be allowed to do that?
Why is this person forging receipts of payments that were never made, which is a crime and she can go to jail for, just so she can stay in my house?
Why do I get no support from the council or anyone else in getting my house back and have to keep living in someone else's house as a favour, sharing a bed with my son when I have a 4-bed property of my own?
I am not entitled to council housing because I am a home owner, so not help there either, even though I can't actually have access to my own house.
Why isn't there a law to protect me against these people? Why do I have to suffer so much, mentally and financially, because the council will not find this person somewhere else to live NOW if that's what they're going to have to do eventually anyway because one day, one way or another, this person will have to leave my property, so why make my life hell and not just get on with it?
This person is lying and taking advantage of everything she possibly can, and all people tell me is that there's nothing I can do, I have no rights, only she has. they tell me to pay lawyers and take her to court, and even then she lies and deceives everyone just so she can stay longer and in the end I'm the one who will be left with a wrecked house, because the council will not pay for all the damage he has done to my property, she'll probably never pay me the rent arrears as she's just going to say she has no money and that's the end of that, no one can make her pay and it's just a win win situation for her and I'm left with loss of money, sleep, comfort, endless stress and complete disbelieve in this system... and no one will do absolutely anything to help me, only her.
Daniele Pinheiro
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Sign Up18:08 PM, 3rd August 2015, About 9 years ago
Reply to the comment left by "Katherine Box" at "14/06/2014 - 23:56":
Hi Katherine, I understand your pain as I'm in a similar situation, it's very frustrating and I am very sorry you and your family are having to go through this.
These people cannot be allowed to keep doing things like this, more laws have to be put in place to protect landlords because not everyone rents out their property to make money, some do it because they have no other choice and when we try to get it back we are locked out and have our hands tied while the tenants laugh in our faces and live comfortably at our expenses.
Me and my little boy are also living out of someone's good faith in a room they have kindly lent to us, but until when do we have to go through this? All we are asking for is our own house back, we don't want anything else from anyone, only what is our by right.