Friend evicting elderly tenant

[AppalachianWoman]

Would it change the way you felt about your friend if he evicted an elderly (70+) tenant so he could move into the house instead? The rent was paid upfront through a lifetime of agricultural labor from late childhood but the friend who recently inherited the estate feels they are owed cash payments and the property. The tenant cannot read or write and was widowed a year or two ago, has no children of his own but some step children from his marriage. The friend currently occupies another, smaller, property on the estate and was expected to move into the largest house which is very grand indeed but requires extensive renovation. He is daunted by the work and expense and has instead become fixated on the property the elderly farmhand lives in.

It feels emotionally immature of me to drop a friend over a difference in values but I am shocked that he would even consider this course of action. I don’t want to be friends with someone who acts this way, how can I exit gracefully or should I try to support him as he has supported me emotionally through decades of friendship?

With respect - what formal preparation do you need to know its fundamentally wrong to throw out an agricultural tenant, housed in return for a lifetime of work?

What formal preparation do you need to think a smaller but modernised house is "too good" for that person who gave a lifetime of work in return for accommodation?

This person may have been supported to you and his peers but frankly, filling holes in his budget by reneging to the loss of a low paid labourer suggests that he doesn't value or respect people who are not his peers.

Local support would be good, Agricultural Workers union/benevolent groups are more likely to provide support to a former agricultural worker. An Age Concern group may also be able to help along with Shelter. NFU/CLA represent the owners' interests rather than labourers.

It sounds like it could be an agricultural tenancy, which can be very complicated. It very much depends on the agreement.

www.gov.uk/agricultural-workers-rights/agricultural-tenancies

If the worker loses their job or retires, they can stay in the accommodation. The farmer can ask them to start paying rent - or a higher rent than before. If the farmer and worker cannot agree on a rent, they can go to a rent assessment committee.

If the farmer wants the property back, they can apply to the courts, although they may have to provide the tenant with suitable alternative accommodation. If nothing suitable is available, the tenant may be entitled to re-housing by the council.

I would recommend that your friend gets together with who ever has inherited this estate, an accountant who knows about farming and the farm manager and anyone who knows about farming on a business level to see how badly the farm is doing and how long they can last. Are they claiming all the subsidies or is there a pathway to making the estate profitable.
It might be that selling off all or part of the estate to save the rest or just putting the whole thing up for sale in lots and seeing what they can get for it and walking away is the only route forward.

Instead of trying to evict a tenant who has every right to live there. Your friend needs to educate himself pdq on farming. This old guy would have probably taught him a thing or 3 even without being literate and I would suggest he is going to have more problems than he has now if he continues down this path as people who could help him won’t and very soon this poisoned chalice of an inheritance will come tumbling down on him.

Your friend needs to get his head out of his arse and stop thinking he is Lord of the Manor and people are going to bow and scrape to him and do as they are told.

He is part owner of a failing business and he is targeting the wrong person to make himself feel in control

If he moved in before 1989, he will be classed as an agricultural tenant with a regulated tenancy. He would have a right to live there, even without a formal tenancy.

From shelter:

Your right to live in your home does not end even if you lose your job or retire or if the property is sold.

In most cases, the only way that your landlord can evict you is to supply you with suitable alternative accommodation. This must be either another regulated tenancy or another tenancy with similar strong rights.

england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/farm_workers_living_in_tied_accommodation

OP, I'm really pleased you're looking out for this man. Too many tenants don't know their rights.

When you contact the parish priest, please share the info from shelter.

You could also let your friend know that it would be an illegal eviction if the gentlemen moved in before 1989. Hopefully that will make him think twice even if he is low on morals,

Totally heartless, I say this as a landlord myself ! Is his name Ebenzer?

I know a guy who is a sitting tenant. He pays £60 per month (£720 per year) for his 1 bed flat in a very very nice area of London. Flat is probably worth around £600,000 but until he move on his own accord or he dies then he continues to pay his £60 per month

Firstly, your friend's on a sticky wicket trying to terminate a contract where this man's already completed his end of the deal. Even if the contract was only verbal the fact that his wages were so far below even minimum wage is proof in itself.

Second, your friend's a tosser.

You’re really looking at old school feudalism here where peasants/ serfs were obliged to work for the local landowner for a pittance. People would come to work on an estate for a tied cottage and enough money to live on and leave in a wooden box. Obviously times have changed but laws were put in place to protect those farm workers from being kicked out when they retire, possibly due to cunts inheriting and attempting to kick out the long-standing employees and retirees. There has been a line drawn of pre 1989 in England. obviously these types of leases will cease to be a thing over the next few decades as those that hold them die off.

He isn’t a squatter, he has legal rights even if there is no contract if he’s been there since before 1989 there will be an assumption of an agricultural lease as opposed to short tenancy agreement.

Im sure you are right just because he is illiterate doesn’t mean he’s stupid. He grew up in a time when his education wasn’t valued. I know someone of a similar age who took his siblings to school in a pony and cart then came home and looked after his grandparents then got s job at the estate when he was a young teenager. He was never allowed to go to school; no one taught him to read.

Is it fair for someone to work for 50+ years to be made homeless? Obviously now you’d have a pension, would of paid enough NI to get a state pension and of been getting at least minimum wage. However when he started wages were low but there would of been an expectation of a home for life. The law regarding agricultural leases wasn’t radical it was simply putting what was normal for the time on the statute books to protect people from unscrupulous nobles.

Even as minimum wages came in estates increased rents so they didn’t have to pay more. Buckingham palace did the same when min wage kicked in all the live in staff had to start paying money for room and board. I don’t think he is being unreasonable to expect the new owner to discharge the duties of the previous owner.

How sad. People can be so cruel.

What an utter cunt , despicable behaviour, and yes you need to tell him

He’s in his 70.

Was a child of the 1950s/60s

i think we can do away with the medieval references to peasants and feudalism! 😂

In my humble view

the OP is thousands of miles away.
Has had a telephone conversation with her friend of decades
Doesn’t understand or have any experience of the UK housing laws, tenancies, landlord rights and obligations, probate law etc

and instead has misinterpreted the entire situation.

Hence why everyone else according to the OP seems fine with it all.

I think you might want to review your maths.

Maybe not mediaeval, but it would have been post-war Britain in a rural area. A very different time in comparison to now.

That was my first thought.

Maybe not mediaeval

this made me 😂

2022

72 years old. Born 1950

So what are you on about? Of course he was a child of the 50s and 60s. No matter whether 72 or 78

The line was drawn in 1989. So no, not medieval but there will still be plenty of people living on this basis

You're right that the OP may not know all the details, but why can't you accept what they are saying is perfectly believable?

I would tell my friend that it was a heartless thing to do and urge them to reconsider. Hopefully it won’t be as simple as your friend thinks to get rid of this elderly tenant. If the friend went ahead and evicted this man, I couldn’t be friends with them.

Tied cottages haven't gone away and Minimum Wage is fairly recent. Agricultural workers' wages have always been low.

This has been answered several times. The friend doesn't want the tenant to have this house because it has a new kitchen.

Because I’ve been on mumsnet for a long time

Because this is an anonymous chat forum

Because what the OP tells us as her interpretation is deeply unpleasant of her friend. And yet everyone else in RL who are involved with or know of the situation,?according to the OP, is supportive of it

The line was drawn in 1989. So no, not medieval

It’s like saying… **it was a cold. So no, not terminal lung cancer”!!

So not the 1960s then. If this person were 73 or older they would be born in the 1940s.
A quick look at the Collins English dictionary would tell you that mediaeval is a variant spelling of medieval.
I'm not even going into the complexities of agricultural contracts with you.

But if they were 72 they would have been born in 1950.

As your friend has "supported you emotionally through decades of friendship" then you owe it to him to explain how this behaviour makes you feel, and that if he pursues this course you will realise that he's not the man you always believed he was, and that with deep sadness you don't feel you can bear to have any more to do with him.

Maybe hearing it direct and not pussy-footed around with, will make him see how cruel and disgusting his intentions are.

I'd also point out to him that, as previous posters have said, agricultural communities - I lived in one for 27 years until this past August, so I can vouch for how true it is - have long memories and he will possibly find himself ostracised and having to bring in any contractors/workers that he needs from a long distance away.

Finally, like other posters have suggested, is there a way for you to befriend the old gentleman and either be his advocate or arrange for one from a govt. organisation or charity to help him fight this in Court?

(And way to go to you for caring. You're good people.)