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?

Your friend sounds like a colossal prick.

Am I missing something? Why can’t they swap houses?

It depends.
Obviously for the old man it's awful.

But if your friend needs to move into his own property then that's that.

Have tit spoken to your friend about the impact on this man ? He may have good reasons for it.

In all honesty, I don't see why a single, elderly man needs a 4-bedroom house to live in. I wouldn't have too much of a problem if your friend was offering him a smaller property on the estate instead, but evicting him altogether is clearly a very unpleasant thing to do, given that this man worked his whole life for your friend's father on the understanding that he would have a home for life.

I'm picturing your friend dressed in a top hat, hitting children with his cane in the workhouse.

What a monstrous person. If you have been friends for as long as you say you have, let rip at him. I would tell him straight that he's an amoral piece of shit for even considering this.

That was suggested but he doesn't want to give the old man the smaller house because it has just had a new kitchen fitted.

It is probably illegal. I'd be speaking to the tenant to make sure he understood his legal rights and warning him against swapping accommodation, if that is offered, without making sure his new home has similar rights.

The old man has lived there many years and it may be that house would need considerable renovation to make it suitable for your friend to live there.

If he wants the man to move I suggest he gets him on the council waiting list for sheltered accommodation and offers to pay any costs associated with a move.

If he has lived in the house all his life then he will be a sitting tenant anyway. I expect the legal advice will be that he stays, even if your friend sells the house.

The farmhand has lived there his whole life, my friend does think of him as a squatter.

Words cannot express how disgusting your friend is. Is he completely without morals or just very thick?

The rent has all been paid, as agreed, albeit upfront. Instead of being paid a fair wage for all his work and then paying rent, the rent has been deducted 'at source'. I agree that this sounds like modern slavery - and I would make this clear to your friend. If the man is illiterate, I'd say there's a very high likelihood that he has been seriously exploited in a way that would not have been possible with a more-educated, less-vulnerable person, and a judge would view your friend very harshly. In fact, the issue of your friend needing somewhere to live could be taken care of anyway - at His Majesty's Pleasure.

I think it's even more disgusting that, although there is another property that the man could move to, if your friend really needs the bigger place, he isn't willing to let him have it, as it's 'too good' for him. He's not only protecting his own interests but also wilfully acting against the old man's interests, out of spite. Where does he expect him to go? I presume he just doesn't care; nasty, nasty man.

Does the old man know what your friend's intentions are? Does your friend just see him like a docile old horse that he can have sent to the knacker's yard, now that he no longer has a need for him?

I've felt weird throughout this writing 'your friend' as he really does not sound like somebody that anybody would ever want as a friend. I realise that he isn't the old man's son, but if he has children of his own, I wonder how he would feel if they deliberately tried to throw him out on the streets and likely send him to an early grave - just for fun, effectively.

Where about in UK it makes a difference? There is a fairly good chance he just needs to wait till he dies or goes permanently into care.

I do live in ye olde farmhouse and they cost a fortune to heat so a smaller more modern property might suit better. I live sandwiched between two estates and they wouldn’t do this. People do get shuffled around upon retirement. The head groundskeeper retired and went to live in a bungalow on the estate and the newly promoted head groundskeeper moved his young family into bigger house. I’m friends with the family that moved in and it was in the pipeline for Years.

I'm picturing your friend dressed in a top hat, hitting children with his cane in the workhouse.

Me too; the kind of person who would be driving past in his brand new Rolls Royce, see a peasant with a rusty old bike and decide that it would be a lark to take that too.

To throw him out when he has a life tenancy in exchange for labour wouldn't be legal as far as I'm aware. To kick him out now would mean he's worked many years for free essentially. Its obviously also hugely morally wrong and contemptible, and I'm surprised your friend can't see this. It's also disgusting he/she balks at the idea of the tenant occupying his current cottage because it has some new modern conveniences, god forbid an estate worker who gave their life's energies to the estate should live their remaining years in comfort. I work in the horticultural field on an estate and I'll bet the old tenant has a myriad of back problems and isn't in amazing health at his age either.

Slightly different perspective. I’m shy of 60 and my husband is mid 60s. We’re already finding our 5 bed family home too much.
I don’t see any issue with your friend wanting to take the 4 bed on but he must be made to see that he owes it to the tenant to find him alternative, more suitable accommodation.

If he refuses, yes, I’d want nothing further to do with him.

Contact Shelter, they've a helpline you can phone for advice. They won't be able to discuss the specific case with you without the tenant or landlords consent but will be able to advise on the legalities and you can decide how to approach your friend or the tenant, if necessary.

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

scotland.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/tenants_rights/tied_accommodation

So the friends owns the entire lot but wants to evict this guy because he has a slightly better one than he does?

What a vile, greedy creature!

I would be encouraging the friend to do up the grand house and telling him how nice it would be and how much space he’d have etc etc and hope is sway his interest back into that.

I would say that you don’t think it’s fair, especially as this man is elderly and won’t live forever and then it’s all his.

The worst case scenario I would be saying they need to do a home swap.

I wish I knew the old man in RL as I feel he’ll be bullied into doing something he doesn’t want to do.

The NFU would have plenty to say about this.

The old fella’s name isn’t Burt Fry, is it?

when my “friend” was telling me the life story of this gentlemen and intimate detail whilst he was living there and with no hint of this issue… then I would have stopped him in his tracks and explained that he was revealing fat too much personal information about his tenant.

At that point I would have been somewhat 🤔 about my friend and his approach to this tenant

So your friend has just inherited an entire estate, with a grand house, a farmhouse and what sounds like multiple cottages (you mentioned he lives in 'one of' them). He presumably hasn't worked for any of this, yet he feels more entitled to ALL of it than an elderly man who's worked on the estate all his life is entitled to his own home? And he calls the man a squatter!!

I would have to speak to him OP. After decades of friendship you should be able to.

If he goes ahead anyway I hope he's legally prevented. In the UK there's no way he could evict this man for the reasons given (Shelter has a page on agricultural tenancies). May be different if you're in the US.

They're in the US.

People do get shuffled around upon retirement. The head groundskeeper retired and went to live in a bungalow on the estate and the newly promoted head groundskeeper moved his young family into bigger house. I’m friends with the family that moved in and it was in the pipeline for Years.

Re-assigning the available accommodation on the estate to best suit everybody's changing needs is light years away from chucking an exploited, vulnerable person out on his ear, just because you think the available, suitable house is too good for him and that he won't be able to fight back.

@AppalachianWoman
“Thanks for the validation so far. It is shocking how few people are expressing their distaste for this, the land agent and other friends are all for it.”

Well done for retaining your integrity; his other friends sound like they are living in a moral vacuum.

They're in the US.

No, OP is in the US, but the exploited old man and Ebenezer Scrooge are in the UK.

I’d try and make contact with the tenant (and perhaps his adult step children with tenant’s agreement) BEFORE telling your friend what you think of him.

You may well find yourself banished from the estate if you dare challenge the entitled (and likely titled) prick who owns it!

He has to provide alternative accommodation. This is from Shelter.
And yes I would cut contact and support the elderly man tbh.

I've just re-read and seen that the landowner lives with his wife in the 3-bedroom property - no mention of any children. I assumed that he must have a bigger family and thus need the room, but it appears that I assumed wrongly.

Even so, I don't think a swap would be at all unreasonable; but he now just sees this faithful, exploited old worker as a piece of dirty rubbish to be thrown out