to think the council should not throw my young nephews out onto the street?

[Lookingforinfo]

OK I confess at the start I am looking for info, rather than comments on reasonableness, but I wasn't sure where else to post.

This all started when my X-SIL was most definately being unreasonable herself.... my DB gave her all the equity from the house when they got divorced (80K) so that she could buy a small flat for her & the kids (4 & 6 YO). Instead of doing this she moved into her mum's council house and put half the money into trust for the kids (it is now locked up until they are 18 and she can't get it back). The remainder was frittered away over a couple of years (half going on a failed business idea).

Anyway, her mum died recently and the council have now told her that it is her own fault that she doesn't have any money left and she is not allowed to stay in the council house. They have told her she must move out and move into B&B accomodation (which she then needs to claim for from the council). My DB can't help any more because he is flat broke (and he has nowhere himself where he could take the children).

Can the council do this? And does this sound plausible (my XSIL is by all accounts going spare about it all so I guess it is true and not just a ruse for more money from DB)? What should she do? If she just refuses to leave the council house, will it all go to court and will she be kicked out anyway? I would be the first to say that she has been very very stupid to do this with the money (and I am sure that putting some of it in trust was probably a deliberate ploy to avoid 'wasting it on rent') but that is by the by, she is where she is and I don't really know what the council expect her to do (they seem to think she can magic the money back). I am very that my nephews are in this position and don't know what to advise DB to do..... any ideas?

could affect housing benefit though

cannot remember if non-dependents savings are taken into account.

not read all the replies but there is a lot of conlficting info. She MUST seek quality, independent advice i.e. NOT from the council. Go to CAB or better still, Shelter.

You can succede to a tenancy. This is not automatic though. You have to exercise your right to do this and it is probably something it is best to get help with

also, in terms of being intentionally homeless, I do not think that on these`facts she would be. The decision has to be based on the reasons for loosing your last accommodation. In this case it is because her mum died - that is not something she caused to happen.

Hello, all. Many thanks for posting - have onyl just been able to get back...

yes, Greyriverside, the assumptions have been growing. No she didn't fiddle the benefits nor did her mum. Her mum was retired and paid rent out of pension. My XSIL tried the business route because she didn't want to claim benefits either.

The flesh of the story for those who want to know is that she looked for work, but because her youngest has only just turned 4 and isn't yet at school, I know she didn't try too hard. What she did instead was to buy a patently ridiculous franchise business (which she admits in hindsight - and we all told her was ridiculous at the time...), it was a business that she thought she could do around around the children, with her mum looking after the kids. Anyway, without going into the ins and outs of it, her mum got cancer almost at the sanme time as she bought the franchise and the business went completely to pot because instead of her mum helping her out with the business she had to move in to look after her mum instead.

The other £20k is what she has been living on over last couple of years (her mum has been covering cost of housing etc), I am fairly sure she hasn't claimed benefits (she got money from my DB for the kids, obviously)

That's the case for the defence.... on the other hand she made me furious for:

(1) not buying a flat with the 80k. She could have brought (a very) small place outright, but didn't want to because she was insistant at the time that as soon as she got the business up and running she could then get a mortgage to buy something similar to the family home and in her mind she was superwoman who would be a huge success with her business plans...

(2) we were all speechless when she put the money away for the kids. It is in trust so she legally cannot retrieve it. She says she did it to ensure the kids had something for university (at the time her DD from first marriage was just heading off to uni and she argued long and hard that DD went to uni with nothing and she wasn't going to let the younger two do the same). I still slightly about her motives here...

What annoys me in all this is not the pickle she has got herself into but that my two DN's face the prospect of moving into B&B.

My DB would take them in a heartbeat if he could, but he can't because he lives in the sitting room of a 1 bed flat himself (he has rented out the bedroom because he is on his uppers himself). If he took them in then he would lose his tenant and wouldn't then be able to cover his own mortgage (and he would struggle to look after them because he works 12 hour days as it is).

It is all such a bloody mess

I am by the way very very grateful to the posters who have given me the legal advice and info on how the councils work. I have no idea if the mum got the house via sucession in the first instance - I will pass the info to my DB so he can check that out

By the way, very very heartfelt thanks to the posters who have advised here. My own mum has been in floods of tears over all of this, and I had no idea how to find out info to assist. You've helped hugely in pointing us in the right direction.

Well, here's hoping the mother wasn't claiming single discount on council tax, because that will come up.

As someone pointed out, if the mother was once a joint tenant with a now deceased partner or husband succession has already occured, which may be why the council is reclaiming its property to rehouse one of the thousands of families now homeless, living in temporary accommodation or in a B&B through no fault of their own.

They may also successfully claim that they have no duty to house her, because her actions caused her predicament. Again, they do maintain this right.

If her younger one is now 6, then she can get a job like the rest of us and wait in the queue if the council determines succession has already occurred.

Why is the government always supposed to pick up the pieces when people cock up? I so don't get that mentality AT ALL.

'Ooooo, we all make mistakes . . . '

Yeah, so, why should one person jump the queue and get housed before another one because of their mistakes?

That does rather encourage an attitude of "let's all go and cock up because there will be no consequences for us as the council will let us queue jump over all the other poor sods on the housing register"

We all take decisions in our lives and we then have to live with the consequences - and unfortunately that often affects our families.

To the OP - your brother might well be able to take the children because, if they are with him, he may be able to claim working tax credit and child tax credit, which might cover the rent his tenant is paying him, not to mention child benefit too. Worth considering.

if your exsil was on the tenancy then the council will have a duty to rehouse BUT seeing as they are hesitating is why i have posted what i have posted based on the situation that arose when my mum died in 2005.
My mum had declared to the coucil that my neice was living at the premesis with her and she was named on the tenancy. My mums lodger was not named and not declared (naughty of my mum and i did not know this before she died!) I was bought up in council house and mum always told me she could only have guests for 6 weeks before they had to be declared although im not sure if this is still right.
ANYWAY, my niece was rehoused the lodger was not. If Exsil not named then she was there unlawfully (probably not the right word but YKWIM) If she was named the council would help her.

vitomum you said - "...also, in terms of being intentionally homeless, I do not think that on these`facts she would be. The decision has to be based on the reasons for loosing your last accommodation. In this case it is because her mum died - that is not something she caused to happen."

The Housing dept will look at why she moved into her mums and she was clearly in a position to get suitable accommodation (regardless of the size) - she chose to move into her mums house, spend half the money and place the remainder in 'trust' - she will be viewed as attempting to get council accommodation by what they call 'Contrivance'

"Where an applicant worsens their housing situation ... this may be considered as ?contrivance.?

Where did they live before they moved in with her mother?

It really doesn't sound to me that she was trying to diddle the benefits, seh got the settlement and, yes maybe she should have bought a house, but she did what she thought was best for her children by putting money away for them, spent £20,000 on a failed business and in 2 years spent £20,000 supporting herself, 2 children and probably heped her mother who was dying of cancer. Not a great deal of money tbh and she probably wasn't entitled to ant benefit if she had that money so what was she supposed to live on?

It doesn't sound like she intentionally did what she did with the money and then moved into her mum's council house, it's just bad business sense.

She should have bought somewhere to live but she would have had to live on benefit anyway, as she couldn't work. Maybe she assumed that she would getthe house after her mum died which is why she moved in with her but I know if my mum was dying I would want to be with her and help her....

Let's not forget the small children who have been through a divorce, watching their grandmother die and now maybe put out of the home they have lived in for the past year or more. Let them stay in the house.

Joash, i believe 'contrivance' is a term that applies to 'waiting list / transfer' applications. It wouldn't be applied to a homeless assessment

vitomum ... 'contrivance' is the term used to determine why any applicant is in the position that they are currently in. It would be applied to a homeless assessment if they decided that she was in a situation where she could have housed herself successfully, but instead moved into her mothers house with the intention of succeeding the tenancy.

The council will look at intentionality. Can she be deemed to have made herself intentionally homeless. They may conclude that, having been allocated £80,000 to rehouse herself and having spent that money in other ways, she has made herself intentionally homeless. Or they may not.

I don't think her choices are that bad - the business may well not have failed if she didn't have to deal with her mum having cancer at the same time, and good on her for putting away a good amount for her children's future.

Yes I guess it would have been very sensible to keep a chunk for a deposit on a house or flat; but I'm not sure I would have made the BEST choices of my life after a divorce and with a dying mother and two kids to look after....

Your brother is also these children's father and bears a responsibility to look after them; it would be great if he, too, could have kept himself in a position to care for his kids and then this mess wouldn't be so bad all round, would it?

However it's non productive to focus on what is past....I do agree that the ex sil needs to check her position very very carefully with the council; and her situation and the kids' may not be too bad at all if they are not deemed intentionally homeless; as someone said earlier, councils are REALLY hot on not sticking people in B & B for long now - she may well get something else much quicker than it appears.

Some Social Housing tenancies have a single generation inheritance right on them (can't remember the legal terms). When I lived in social housing my DD could have inherited the lease, by virtue of being my next of kin IYSWIM, but tenancy agreements do vary.

Get the Tenancy agreement her mother had checked (CAB) and tell her to sit tight and DON'T MOVE OUT BUT KEEP PAYING THE RENT until this is all sorted out (sorry anyone on the list, but my friend became 'voluntarily homeless' when his mum died as he followed the advice of the council and freed up her house for a family when he moved out after they told him to, and was completely stuffed...and left homeless with no help from anyone, oh, he was her full time career as well, so became jobless at the same time.....). If she is occupying the property and paying the rent, the council will probably have to file for a court order to remove her from the house with the bailiffs, even if she doesn't have the right to be there.

They may view her as voluntarily homeless as she didn't use the money from her divorce to re-house herself and her kids and how long are the B and B waiting times in the area? B and B isn't always that bad.

Joash, i think i will return to my original point - that she must obtain specialist, independent advice. I know you used to work for Shelter. I actually still do, but have not been directly providing advice for 2 years as am in a management role now. My point is that neither of us can be 100% sure we are providing the best advice so probably should shut up and not confuse things more!

sorry, but i do get annoyed when people are so pessimistic about others housing situtations as it may put them off trying to get advice. And IME there is often a way through if you get the correct advocacy and advice.

vitomum I have never said that I used to work for Shelter, I said I did some work with Shelter (I trained some of their advisors). I was not being pessimistic merely stating information based on current guidelines for this Local Authority which have been recently re-written and were reprinted last wednesday!!

What is important is that she does not assume that she is eligible to succeed the tenancy. If you re-read the original post, this woman has already been told that her lack of money is her own fault, she is not entitled to succeed to the tenancy and that she must move into B&B accommodation. The question asked whether the council could do this and the answer is yes they can.

HG: I think your email abot sums it up: I think she made a couple of very stupid business decisions but at the end of the day she did end up with a huge amount on her plate. She left her previous (privately rented) accomodation solely because her mum needed looking after, and that is also why the business went belly up. so she has had a tough time of it, regardless of mistakes made. In terms of my DB shouldering more repsonsibility for the kids, HG, I am a little but that's probably because I am a bit biased: he works v long hours and I think would have to go on dole himself to look after them because youngest is not at school (not the XSIL would let him have kids anyway even though he would in a heartbeat). Lost of other reasons for but not the place to post them here as is between DB and XSIL.... I will say though that he almost lost his own accomodation because he had to take lots of time off to look after the kids to give XSIL support when she was looking after her mum, so he is about as responsible as they come.

anyway, quick update: yesterday the council told her that they have considered everythig and in their view she has not intentionally made herself homeless (or I guess been guilty of contrivance). The deal now is that she WILL leave the current house in 8 weeks and it will be given to a larger family at top of waiting list; in the intervening 8 weeks she gets supplied with a list of all the smaller flats available, and she can choose one of those (and tough luck if in those 8 weeks only really awful stuff comes up). She is extremely relieved wiht htis and is optimistic: because she grew up in the same house and has lived within that area all her life (even when in private accomodation), she knows every single street in the area very well, so she thinks she has a head start because she knows which streets are 'good' (even when they may look rough to outsiders) and which ones are really bad. I will keep fingers crossed that the list is not full of the latter only (though I am not quite as optimistic as she is). So a suitable result all round I think (and she is thanking her lucky stars that it didn't go the other way).

Thanks everyone for their comments and advice.

Depending on the way the trust is set up and who the trustees are, then there are ways of accessing the 40k which has been locked away.

that's good news LFI.

Sounds like you are doing your best to support everyone, must be hard.

Joash - please show me where you can get a house in Portsmouth for £40K. Cos I'll be camping on the agents doorstep ready to snap one up!

love the name panda,

glad it's gone well lookingfor.

Thanks Ambi. Beleive it or not, it's my a chat up line my friend and I use (boring story behind it though)! Surprisingly, it's pretty unsuccessful.