Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

189 replies

user1490607838 · 14/02/2020 14:49

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?

OP posts:
wapbapboo · 15/02/2020 09:42

Were his back problems work related injury?

As an aside, I know a caretaker and it can be shit because you are lumped with everything with no clear boundaries. The workload can be massive in a school with too much responsibility. If that was not managed and he had no union support. They then have no job to support the family and children to feed so its easier to stay and fight it although inevitable they would lose. The legal eviction process does take while.

Of course they should be evicted.

Decorhate · 15/02/2020 09:43

The reason rent is low is not because the pay is low but because it’s to compensate for having someone on hand for security & out of hours emergencies. If hadn’t been sacked he might have been entitled to alternative accommodation when he retired.

Definitely a CF!

Leithwalk · 15/02/2020 09:50

The FB page???? WOW
What a sob story made up of very selective information. Why are people so gullible in supporting them.
I would post the link to this page and to the court case on it ( if I didn't work for a council in a politically restricted post!)
Is there also a comments box on the Mirrors website?

x2boys · 15/02/2020 09:57

The facebook page is interesting , very manipulative ,she's talking about her kids as though they are tiny.children not teenagers and adults ,I'm not surprised by the comments on the page usual.mix of gullible and the not to intelligent .

Willowashen · 15/02/2020 09:57

Also, Mirror clearly knew exactly what buttons it was pushing by references to “stay-at-home” Mum etc and the storm of outrage and ridicule this would bring. There are literally thousands of more deserving causes out there. This family has been played by the Mirror...

Willowashen · 15/02/2020 09:59

Is there also a comments box on the Mirrors website?

Yes, comments are broadly in line with those on here, but with a few sympathetic ones thrown in.

Kirkman · 15/02/2020 10:00

Were his back problems work related injury?

He was sacked for gross misconduct. I'll health was a lie.

JeansNTees · 15/02/2020 10:01

Hopefully the rules that apply to everyone else, will also apply to them despite their whining petition. There is no reason at all for the 2 adult daughters to be housed in a council house with their parents. If sanity prevails, at most they are waiting for a 2 bed flat or house with their boys sharing a room. Why aren't they aren't renting privately now? I can't see any obligation from the council to house them after the dad was fired for gross misconduct. He's working in a new job! FFS.

Kirkman · 15/02/2020 10:03

I cabt believe they are campaigning to get back in the house. They still believe they have a right to live there

Wilmalovescake · 15/02/2020 10:06

This story is everything that is wrong with Britain.

Glad the council got there in the end.

BestestBrownies · 15/02/2020 10:07

My line of work includes tied accommodation. The salary is hugely reduced because of this benefit, but DP and I are neither stupid nor entitled CF, so have made plans for our pensions/retirement in the form of a property that we rent out. Everyone we know in our situation does this.

These parents are piss-taking, scrounging CF’s. Disgusting behaviour to model to your children (who will grow up to be the same or worse).

Are the idiots supporting them unable to grasp that it is their own taxes propping up these people?

TheFlis12345 · 15/02/2020 10:16

That article! “My children don’t have any toys”, one of them is 21!

Kirkman · 15/02/2020 10:18

Between 4 adults of working age, not needing child care, they can save a deposit and pay their bills easily.

Even if it's just the 2 parents. They can both get into work and save.

Willowashen · 15/02/2020 10:22

@Leithwalk

www.stiveschambers.co.uk/housing-update-davies-v-hertfordshire-county-council-2018-ewca-civ-379/

I think this is what you were alluding to.

It’s a bizarre defence which, had it been upheld, would mean anyone who ever moved house with children was not having due regard to their safeguarding, even if they are secondary age. Confused

PinkSpring · 15/02/2020 10:27

They are delusional morons.

What makes them think they have any right to stay in the property!! It came with the fathers job, when the job ended, the property went with it. Considering he lost the job in 2015, how they can say it's all unexpected - they have known for nearly five years they had to leave but chose not to.

It makes me angry that people like them exist and it's worse that people are actually signing their petition to get the house back (never going to happen!).

Between them, the adults could all afford to save for a deposit somewhere - but no they liked paying cheap rent on a property they were essentially trespassing in.

If they want it back so badly and it's due to be sold, why not attempt to buy it - not demand it's given back to them!

anon2000000000 · 15/02/2020 10:29

What's the Facebook page?

Cyberve · 15/02/2020 10:29

Can't quite believe how many gullible people have signed the petition..

Not that it will help anyway. They still won't get their £90 a month house back. They should have saved the extra money in that time. Their fault, no one else's.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 15/02/2020 10:30

I have often wondered about what happens when caretakers and vicars retire

I know a number of vicars. Some of them have had lucrative careers before they were called to ordination - they usually own properties which they rent out. Some have spouses with good jobs (ditto). (Some, of course, live in their own houses and the church rents out the "tied" home - church gets the rent money) Others are aware that when they retire the house goes too, and save up. Usually by the time they retire they can afford at least a small property, as long as they don't want to live i inner London or anything like that.

I daresay a couple of them are idiots and don't make any provision, but the only one I know who has had difficulties was one who served as a missionary for many years, and whose wife worked with him. Their spare money went into keeping their children in UK schools. They are very reliant on their children for help.

Bunbunbunny · 15/02/2020 10:37

@LemonTT it was part of the contract for ILEA sites they would be rehomed by the council if they had started working in the 70s/80s

GMB's name is mud among a lot of old school keepers, I wouldn't give them a penny

This case is different from a lot of the other cases that have happened in the last five years.

Cyberve · 15/02/2020 10:38

Jesus they could have saved a ton of money. They said that they want to rent the house at market price from a private landlord. Market price down there for a terraced house is £1300. For a detached bungalow it will be more.

But for inflation purposes let's say on average they could have saved £600 a month for 17 years. That's over £122,000 they could have saved. Where has all of that money gone? Confused

I hope they weren't completely stupid and spent it all. But they probably did. Shame, could have been a nice down payment on a house.

ClientQueen · 15/02/2020 10:39

Bonkers. My parents run pubs, yes it's sad when you move with the job but it is what it is
They retire next year and will have to rent as they will need to leave the pub

YappityYapYap · 15/02/2020 10:41

Seems pretty dodgy to me. The school closed in 2016, not long after he was sacked. It was in the councils interest to sack him and reclaim the accommodation as they now intend to sell it. Seems pretty strange to me that someone is in a job for a long time then suddenly gets sacked months before the council want to close the school and sell the accommodation. Seems pretty convenient for the council.

Also, he was in the job a long time so surely they knew in 2015 that they were going to close the school so this man should have been made redundant, not sacked. It looks to me that they think he is not clever enough to see what they did and took advantage. I wonder if they also sacked the teachers? Probably not, they probably made them redundant or placed them at other schools. I don't think they were treated fairly. I think they should have made him redundant and asked if he wanted to buy the bungalow. The redundancy payment on 17 years service would have been quite a lot and they may have been able to buy the property with the discount people get for being a council tenant.

The little people never stand a chance against councils and things. If no one else can work out that he was sacked just before they closed the school and that seems very convenient then the same people obviously can't work out that 2+2=4!

Willowashen · 15/02/2020 10:42

I hope they weren't completely stupid and spent it all. But they probably did. Shame, could have been a nice down payment on a house.

Of course they spent it all! Otherwise they wouldn’t be in a grotty hotel somewhere.

Willowashen · 15/02/2020 10:46

Also, he was in the job a long time so surely they knew in 2015 that they were going to close the school so this man should have been made redundant, not sacked

He was sacked for gross misconduct.... Having worked for councils most of my life, you don’t get sacked for gross misconduct on a whim. Besides, what’s this got to do with keeping his house now. Whatever the terms of his departure from employment, it doesn’t change the fact he’s not had this job since 2015!

Willowashen · 15/02/2020 10:48

Also, he apparently has a bad back but it then states he’s in the process of renovating the place! Hmm

Swipe left for the next trending thread