HELP. eviction letter.

[butterpieify]

Delivered by hand just now.

"Due to a change in personal circumstances your landlord requires to take back possession of the above property, and so please find enclosed a Notice Requiring Possession which means that you must vacate the property on 9th april 2001.

Due the the circumstances your landlord is willing to release you earlier from your obligation should you find accomidation (sic) sooner that (sic) the expiry of this notice.

Yours sincerely
FOR PATTINSON RENTALS"

Errr...help! We have two kids under five, I'm not working atm for health problems (I get care DLA if that helps?), DH works full time for a low wage and we have very little in the way of savings. We are model tenants, although landlord and letting agent have been dragging their feet with repairs (eg oven still not mended that broke in spetember last year)

I really, really can't be doing with stress (and have very strong medical evidence for this). We live in a strange area (part of Sunderland) which is very divided affluence wise - we are lucky to be renting in one of the nicer areas, but there are areas that are very very deprived and unsafe - I don't mind poor areas, but we are talking stabbings, burning cars and so on.

HELP. Can anyone advise?

Speak to Pattinsons. They let two of my properties and my tenants seem to think they are good agents. They certainly are from my point of view. Don't panic if you don't need to, they may have a suitable property in mind that you could move to. Also, the deposit can transfer to the new rental, as long as there is no reason for portions of it to be withheld.
Don't assume that the agent is going to do you wrong in some way at this tage.

p.s. Some of the advice on here isn't completely correct. Have a read here, it tells you about Section 21 notices (if that is what you have been sent). Also about Section 8 notices, which is what would have to be served in certain circumstances. www.tenancyagreementservice.co.uk/section-21-notice-to-quit.htm
But really, just pick up the phone and talk to Pattinsons before you panic too much. Tell them one of their landlords recommends them as good agends if you like.

Oh, where is the edit facility? Follow the link I've given, there is a section at the end where you can ask for advice from a property lawyer.

Gah. I wrote a long reply and the computer crashed.

Pattinsons have been incompetant from start to finish. Including (but not exclusively) taking 6 weeks from us giving them all the money, documents and references and saying we were ready to move in to an empty property till they gave us the keys (they kept "forgetting" to get us to sign one form after another, and would wait until we rang about the delay to tell us). They rang me up and shouted abuse down the phone about how we had apparently not paid rent for months. When DH rang back with the transaction numbers (properly referenced and so on) they just muttered about a computer error and didn't so much as say sorry. In fact, we suspect they have told the landlord that we only paid up on that date.

They keep changing their story about why it has taken so long to get basic repairs done (every time I ring I get a different excuse, from staff holidays to not being able to get hold of the landlord - the oven has been broken now since september and it is only the threat of getting the local paper involved that has made them so much as attempt a repair)

Every dealing with them has been hard work. If Pattinsons were renting our dream house for £100 pcm we wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, and in fact yours is the first good testimony we have heard about them- everyone else (in fact we viewed a house today where the tenant had the same kinds of stories) has had problems.

I have had to ring Sunderland Council about them a couple of times, and they hinted they had heard the same kinds of stories from other people.

Plus, and I know my spelling on here isn't great, but you would spell check an eviction letter, wouldn't you?

Ah, what a bummer, they've been great for me, and they've been good keeping the flats maintained as well.

In that case, I'd ring Shelter and get your facts sorted out before you go further. Maybe also use the link at the bottom of that webpage I linked to, to get some free advice.
Good luck with this, it sounds as if it might even turn out to be a move for the better!

Can you get a crisis loan] or a Budgeting Loanfrom the Social Fund?

This would help you with a deposit and is interest free. I would approach your local authority and ask what help they can offer in light of the fact that you have two young children and get DLA.