To think if you're sacked from your job, you don't get to keep the accommodation provided with the job?

[user1490607838]

Just that really! A man who worked in a school (as caretaker) for 17 years, has been sacked, and he and his wife are now 'sobbing' because they have nowhere to go!

Whilst it can't be easy to have to move out of the property you have raised your family in, surely they must have known that if he ever lost his job, the accommodation would have gone with it?!

They are trying to make out he was 'unfairly sacked' as he was finished from his job whilst on sick leave. But they have been asked to leave the home several times, and in the end had to be forced out

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-sobs-we-nothing-family-21489077

AIBU to think they shouldn't expect to keep the home provided with the job, when the job finishes?

I love how they say 'bills are our responsibility', I bloody hope so when their rent is £89 (5% of mine!).

A lot of assumptions being made here. A school caretaker employed when the school was maintained (ie under the local authority) would have been paid on a salary scale for that role. He would certainly not have been on minimum wage.

She's a SAHM and their youngest child is 12.

I'm sure she could have chipped in if things were that bad

True.

I can’t feel a lot of sympathy for them, they seem to be very entitled and don’t seem to have much concept of forward planning.

Surely it’s not sensible to have four children and not consider what would happen if the main earner lost their job, especially when that job is tied to your accommodation.

It's not just a house, it's a home & I suppose l feel sad for them because they have all thought of this place as home . Especially the Dc and it isn't something you can just leave without a backward glance. l know l should break my heart if l had to leave mine. All the memories of bringing up the children and the family life you have all enjoyed together. I understand how they have clung to this home and I do think the council should have been more understanding and helped them more and used a mediation service to try to get this sorted .. instead of taking them to court. The amount of money it must have cost everyone in legal/court fees must have been enormous

The same happens to our soldiers, sailors and airmen so why not this caretaker.

Fight for your country, leave the service, move out of your home. Spouse of serving soldier, marriage break up, lose your home.
The property is needed for the next serving soldier!

In the "old days", people in this situation would have gone to the top of the council list for what's now called social housing.

And how many people really think several years ahead when planning their family? How many SAHM threads on here say "We can easily live on DH's wage. I don't have to work" No consideration for the what ifs.

I can't stand these sad face stories. They are so often CFs and people get enraged about the system and heartless bureaucrats, whereas often they're just takers.

Even if the husband had a MH issue, why couldn't the wife and adult children get jobs, even part time. They've had so much time to build up savings, and seek new accommodation, which they've chosen not to do. There are plenty of vulnerable people who deserve our support and sympathy but this family are not amongst them.

I'm sure the council have their own side of the story that they can't put across because of employee confidentiality.

Why did they sack him?

Well, according to him he was off sick after a mental breakdown due to bullying and harassment in the workplace when he was sacked unfairly.

The school/Council were not asked to give their side of the story which might give quite another viewpoint.

Lose the job, lose the house. They will have known this from the get go! The house will be needed for the next caretaker.

I do think the council should have been more understanding and helped them more and used a mediation service to try to get this sorted .. instead of taking them to court

They had 5 years living in a house they had no right to be in. You really dont think that's enough?

No, l don't think it is enough because those five years would have been full of angst and stress over the impending eviction. They look a perfectly nice family, they left the house clean and in good order from the seem of things . They should have been helped to move on not taken to court. I am sure if someone had been a go between for them and the council, then this could have been settled much more amicably.

Say the accommodation is worth a grand a month. It's probably much more but whatever. This cost the council about 50k in lost rent. Plus legal fees and staff time. That's not perfectly nice..

A grand a month is a lot for rent. Where I live that would get you a very nice house

I think it's fair that when a job ends, the tied accommodation is no longer available to the ex-employee.

However, they would have had no choice but to stay until physically ejected into the street in order to qualify for social housing if they were unable to rent or buy privately - both unlikely if they are low earners/he is or was too sick to work - or they would be booted off the books as having made themselves intentionally homeless.

In any case, I'm sure the costs of the action will be more than recouped by the huge amount that will be made from selling the property on the open market, just as has happened with almost every other caretaker's (and previously, headteacher's in rural areas) house in the country.

I used to work in dairying - an industry where housing usually goes with the job. We were warned from college (went to Agricultural college) stage that housing was dependent on the job and that we should make provision for retirement, when suddenly we would be left homeless. In those days council housing was routinely provided for agricultural workers at retirement, so we never took it too seriously, but I can't imagine that this family were NEVER told that they'd have to leave when the job ended.

A grand a month is a lot for rent. Where I live that would get you a very nice house
That’s not really the point, where I live you’d just about get a studio flat.
They knew for 5 years they were living somewhere they shouldn’t be, no one is stupid enough to think you get to stay in a tied house once you leave the job.
They were trying it on & their luck has run out, they’ll have to pay normal rent like the rest of us.
2 of the kids are adults - between the 4 adults of working age I’m sure they could earn enough to rent something

It would be like living in army housing and not thinking you had to move out when you left .

When you live in Army housing you move with the job, not the same in this case.

When you live in Army housing you move with the job, not the same in this case.

How is it not the same? You still dont get to live in the house connected to your job, if you leave the job.

when I clicked on the thread title I thought it was going to be about Harry & Meghan.

A grand a month would get you a 1 bed flat here.

Well taking the council to the High Court, then the Supreme Court wouldn't have come cheap, they probably thought they were so "right" and justifyably agrieved that they never considered the cost of it all!
They would have been given advice that they didn't have a "case" but chose to ignore it, at their cost both emotionally and materially.

Yes but you don't get to stay in army housing when you leave the armed forces do.you @Mrsmadevans?

I’m not far from the place in this story and we’re paying £1300pcm for a three bed and we’re not even in a decent school catchment area (as in we’ve a good chance of not getting into any never mind ofsted ratings and will have to rely on random allocations).

Depending on how good/oversubscribed the school it’s attached to is it may very well be worth more than £1k on the private rental market.