So we're being evicted AGAIN!

[OnandOnItGoes]

3rd rented property in 7 years. Been here for 4 years. Had to leave the last two properties as landlord selling, now we're in the same situation again.

Rent always paid on time and properties always very well looked after so it's not that we're bad tenants, just the never ending game we're stuck in.

We left within the notice period of last 2 properties but can't with this one as rents are £500+ for similar properties and much smaller worse properties with no parking/horrible areas are £200-300 a month more and we simply can't afford it or find one which we are successful for as they seem to only want 'professionals' in high paying jobs.

Council have been no help and have said as both DH and I work, we need to find another rented property. I can only work part time in a low paying admin job due to caring responsibilities as need to be on hand for disabled DC for school drop/pick up and after school as no after school care (teens). We have no family support.

Also worried about being put in temp accommodation as around here it seems to be adapted office blocks with lots of anti social issues. Also as we work I understand we'll have to pay a lot for it!

Section 21 expires on 15th May and I'm aware Landlord will start court process for possession as he's very keen to get us out and get it sold. I assume he'll use the accelerated procedure as he's a professional landlord with lots of properties and is selling most of them I believe.

Does anyone know how long we may have before bailiffs? We're in the South East. I've already looked into storage facilities so we can empty the house but we have no family to stay with so not sure where we'll go from there.

Of course we will continue looking for a property and continue paying rent but any advice on timeline will be helpful if anyone has been through the process recently?

The stress is unbearable and much worse this time due to the current rental market!

If you get evicted you council should have an obligation to you. It may mean entering the homeless system which ain't the best. If bailiefs turn up to evict head straight to local housing office. I d put as much as possible in storage prior to this.

It’s not… LLs are selling left right and centre… tax changes, legislative changes, mortgage increases…. It’s gone to shit for LLs and they are getting out left right and Centre and there are no new investors due to the same thing.

It’s okay though, people campaigned for this because this will free up properties for people to buy as permanent owned homes, so it will all be okay…. 🤷‍♀️

The but they seemed to forget whilst campaigning for all of this was the fact that some people are not in a position to buy and there aren’t enough social housing properties… so here we all are ☹️

Back to the days of Rent Act 1977 which decimated the rental market and nobody learned anything from the first time….

sassy exactly. I remember the rent act days. My first one room in London (squalid shared shower room with loo at end of each corridor) in theory provided croissants on Sundays (they didn't actually provider them) so they could say it was catered and then get rond the laws. There were 20 year council house waiting lists, private rented - hardly anything as tenants could stay for life and some rents were frozen at £10 a year. In fact anyone can do a search of regulated tenancies near them even to this day and see the lower rents paid, I know someone who had a flat near Bond St station at one of these rents from 40 years ago, security of tenure forever. Then assuyred shortholds came out in the 1980s and it was a whole new world of more decent standard private rented properties again. We are now going back the other way.

My sons live at home and have one property each they let out. We had 13 couples viewing in one weekend a day after the last people left to buy their own place. £1100 2 bed house with garden, SE. Interestingly they own a near identical little terraced house 2 streets frome ach other and one has C rating and the other E for no good reason - both have loft insulation, built the same time etc. So the E one might have to be sold in a year or two

@sassyclassyandsmartassy

It only has to descend into a shitshow if people allow it to.

Landlords selling up will cause a short lived issue of lack of supply (personally this is starting to unwind to varying degrees across the country). As during sales, properties will be empty this caused the fall
in supply. But then these have been bought by other landlords, or better yet, FTBs.

Less FTBs = less renters. Less renters = less competition. Plus there’s a magnitude of other regional reasons for lesser demand (non-technical recession waves)

This process can be held up by LLs (non mortgaged) sitting on empty properties whilst they wait for the “right” (read: as much as they can get) price. But when they see a 1/2/3/5 year fixed bond coming out (today!) at 5%, they might start getting twitchy realising they are unlikely to make 5%, if they hold out for a year (whilst, albeit minimal, further costs of any empty property, eat into their “investment”).

As I’ve said before, in the long term, having less landlords is better for this country. Some landlords sure, but way fucking less than the (hopefully forever) peak of the 2010s.

@ThankmelaterOkay where do people live in this short term realignment like the OP ? You do realise the biggest aquirers of property now are corporates like John Lewis and Northern Rock this is going to be a disaster

I did not. You got a source for this? Do you mean Virgin Money? Thought that’s what NR became.

@ThankmelaterOkay i don’t disagree with many of your points. However, the overall conclusion is fundamentally flawed in that the simple conclusion is that there are simply not enough homes being built. The issue isn’t landlords… it’s an under supply of property as a whole for a growing population. The government hiding behind landlords is the smoke screen, you’ve only got to look at the numbers to know this is will be the perfect storm for some time to come yet!

The biggest landlords in the Uk will be corporates yes all the smaller landlords will be going however it won’t be replaced by tenants buying esp if you can’t buy a house under a C reg with a mortgage what a fuck up vilifying landlords with no alternative provision meaning people have no choice even less choice how is this a good thing

Lloyds aspirations

i don’t really see the issue of turning empty Waitroses into flats.

And we can nationalise Lloyds in the next banking crisis. Sounds like a decent way to sort social housing.

@Xenia that's the one… for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. There are queues round the block to view in Scotland now with people crying in the street because they can’t get a house. Look on RM most places say ‘fully booked for viewings’…. Not unheard of to have over 70 enquiries on the first day a property goes live here in the UK… rents increasing by over 20% year on year in popular areas because there is such a shortage of supply…. It’s heartbreaking.

Get the E proeprty reassessed, they are changing assessment criteria shortly and they are capping improvements at £10k of costs then you can apply for exemption according to recent report. Government can see the writing on the wall so they are already living the goalposts!!!

So sorry OP. How stressful. We had a pretty awful experience but were lucky 7 years ago with our council. Also house we are in extremely rural with no transport links so available. It is really tough now. I know of someone with Terminal Illness who has been given 2 months notice as LL selling..they are terrified. Not in my area though and Council not very helpful. Have you thought about contacting Shelter?

@ThankmelaterOkay You think this isn’t a commercial enterprise for these businesses? This will be nothing like social housing…

These are commercial companies, they only have one interest and the fact it’s a corporation that owns them, anyone whose worked for a corporate knows they aren’t fluffy and it’s all about the £££.

@sassyclassyandsmartassy exactly my point it is going to be profit only it’s not social housing not even a small proportion of it !

@Parsley1234 you are totally right, I have never come across a corporate company that isn’t prepared to trample anyone and everyone to make a profit!

We do haev the highest lawful immigratoin in British history too - 1 million a year (500,000 net immigration). That is an awful lot of extra homes needed (we have 18m more people in the UK than when I was born) and the trends are even more people coming as we are such a popular country.

I suppose we could just change the way people live - have more 3 generations of families living together or two single mothers share a 2 bed flat and a bed room if they have one child each. There are lots of land banks but the costs of building are high. London Underground has loads of empty land in London for sale.

OP sorry I'm not sure if someone has already said this but definitely complete the defence and state hardship due to your children's needs. If you can attach a GP letter or other evidence then all the better. The judge dealing with the possession on paper is very likely to give the 42 days notice on that basis.

Listening to a news programme the other day they're mooting a bedroom tax on owner occupier properties. Perhaps to encourage downsizing.

Ludicrous idea. So someone pays hundreds of thousands for a 3 bedroomed house (2 doubles and a single is the norm in a semi), thousands to maintain and improve it over the years, then child grows up and moves out and the parents are 'fined' by the government because the house is too big for the parents.

Such a tax would be money a spinner for the government, as there are zip smaller properties to move to.

Will never happen.

Source please. I've just googled and couldn't find a thing.

Presumably "they" is just going to be some bloke in a tin pot think tank somewhere. 99.9%* of such think tank ideas come to nothing.

*63% of statistics are made up on the spot. I don't have stats at my fingertips on this one, but we all know an owner occupier bedroom tax isn't being mooted by the government.

It would be deeply unpopular with their core voters - older people in the shires who are often living alone in a family sized home now their children have flown the nest.

Not true, they are throwing up one and two bed flats like nobody's business in my city. Pity it's beyond the Brits to build a decent, liveable flat otherwise might be a good thing for many.

I'm in identical situation. It's so tough.

I wonder how many people are lobbying their MPS about this complete shit show yes I have rentals but I also am renting myself and it’s just getting worse and worse when we had a notorious hard to let 1 bed last year we had 50 enquiries and one chap had been looking a year turned up with a year in advance plus deposit he was so desperate. Renters are hoping the market crashes landlords are being hit by interest rate rises my mortgage has doubled so no profit atall now it’s a complete mess. There does need to be a reform bill but not the way is proposed that is going to hit renters harder

Good point, but who would move into an inferior flat? P{possibly they could be taxed into it. They've been doing this for years in Melbourne and they can't shift the "dog-box" apartments as they are called.