Single young mum with 2 kids about to be evicted - plse help

[TheRhubarb]

My neighbour is a single mum with 2 pre-school kids, one just 8 months old. She's been living where she is now for more than a year and her contract is a rolling one with both owners of the house who are renting it out because they've split up.

The contract is signed by both parties and she pays her rent to a bank account in the wife's name.

He now has a new girlfriend and wants to move back into the property, giving her 2 months notice. But she didn't pay him a deposit which means she has no deposit to take to another house. 2 months doesn't give her time to find a new place or save up for the deposit she would need.

She's currently on maternity leave but will be a full time student in Sept and is receiving housing benefit, child tax credit etc.

He hasn't given her formal notice yet, he's coming at 12noon to tell her whether or not he wants to move back in and I'm going to be with her for support. My question is; obv he will have to give written notice but will his wife need to sign the eviction notice too?

Should she tell him that he'll have to evict her forcibly? Which he will need to do because otherwise she'll have made herself voluntarily homeless.

Any other advice before he comes round gratefully appreciated.

Cheers guys

From (ever so slightly) the other side of the fence....my Mum has just served a s21 on her (non paying) tenants, who are also on a rolling monthly contract.My Mum is a joint LL with my cousin and does all the paperwork, she was the only one to sign the s21 (being handled by the agent) (actually, I might be wrong but I think just the agent signed it, my Mum and cousin giving them the go-ahead)

Obviously in their case there was no question that my cousin wasn't in agreement, just saying I don't think both have to sign it.

Excuse me? Damage to the flat? It's a house, not a flat and it is immaculate. as for paying, well during winter a shared fence with a neighbour blew down. It was his fence so he had to repair it. The neighbour had a pond so she couldn't let her children in the garden until he fixed it for fear that they would end up in the pond. Both she and her neighbour were onto him for 6 weeks before he fixed it.

She doesn't want to make anyone pay, but she has 2 small kids and he doesn't so in this situation she has to do what is best for her family.

And this is why people would rather homes sat empty rather than rent them to benefit tenants. It's not their fault but the system stinks, on the other hand maybe if she is at your place OP or in a b and b she would get a council house quicker. My friend was in private rented and had to wait 8 years for an affordable home.

Ok quick update, she's just called to say he's not going round today. The wife doesn't want him moving in with his new girlfriend of 5 weeks so has objected and he has responded by saying that he will take his wife to court if necessary. So this poor girl is caught up in the middle!

The wife is sending an estate agent round to price up the property and says if it's more than £145,000 then she'll put it on the market. But this girl has a trust fund which she gets in 2 years time and she's offered to buy it herself if they can just wait 2 years. However it's up to him too and if he's threatening his wife with legal action etc etc for the house then it doesn't look promising, but at least she has a temporary reprieve.

I'm going to call round later on with a bottle of wine for her.

I bet it's still on the Market in two years time.

Ishani - yes it does stink. When we were renting privately we were told there was no chance we'd get on the council waiting list.

To be fair many private landlords won't accept people on HB anyway, not just because of the eviction thing but because they have an attitude like GB and presume they are spongers who will damage their houses.

I just hope they let her stay for 2 years and that afterwards she can put together to buy it, because she's a lovely neighbour and my dd wants to babysit for her when she gets older

Bloody hell
this girl is paying her way fine. The only real issue is that she doesn't have deposit to move somewhere else. the LL probably thought he was doing her a favour, and she probably should have been a bit more forward thinking, But the OP is asking for advice on how to deal with the situation now

Rhubarb0, I don't know much about this but there was someone on here who was living and paying rent in a property owned by family, and they left when asked and were viewed as voluntarily homeless. Make sure that base is 100% covered

I think the only thing she can do is look for a bit of sympathy from the LL and ask him to help her out in anyway he can. I.e if an eviction notice is necessary for her to be housed, he can agree that she will go on this basis, but knowing that it will not come to court

A lot of trust needed on both sides, but if he took her with no deposit, he obviously trusts her

Should landlords not have landlords insurance for damage to their property, i might be wrong. From another point of few. My brothers girlfriends owns a house with her EXH. They rent it out. He wont let her live their with my brother so she rents it out pays mortgage and has to give the EXH £300 per month. She rents a house with my brother. Most of the houses where i am the landlords only rent to HB claimants providing the rent is paid direct to them and they have a bond certificate. It guarentees they pay their rent and most of the houses they buy up are repossessions which they turn around in a few weeks.

If it's part of a divorce settlement, no-one will be kicking her out anytime soon.
we bought a house with a divorce sett further up the chain, it took nearly a year!

DON'T WAIT FOR CAB APPT! Go to the housing advice centre with the local authority who have a duty to provide advice and information to everyone and should also have a specialist team who can deal with private renting issues. If you PM me the LA area I can probably give you a named contact.

Re the notice etc. the landlord is unable to evict without a court order. Fact. So your friend is under no obligation to leave just because they've received notice

we have a few places in town where at one, you register homeless and in this ladys situation once the eviction date comes around she would be offered a network flat i.e a furnished council house which h.b pays for also gas and electric so she could save up the money otherwise spent. a pain for the time before the eviction as you can never be sure the flat your offered is inb your area but they do try. also once you rergister with them the council will offer 3 available suitable council houses to her. on top of this is a charity which provides a bond for a deposit to a house and all you need for that is your homeless assesment officers recommendation then once the bond is paid you pay it back at say 12pound a week into the credit union.

"and it is immaculate"

Great - but they didn't know that she would keep it that way - and they took her on trust as much as she took them on trust.

"Should landlords not have landlords insurance for damage to their property"

Should tenants not pay for damage to property or is it just for someone else again to pick up the bill?

"this girl is paying her way fine"

actually someone else is, and she expects the landlords to pick up the next bill

Sure - having children trumps everything doesn't it.

Do I think of them as spongers? No, I think they should be helped. But only because of the children, because I was made homeless with my children once by a tenant who refused to move out. No one was sympathetic - not even on here - so no, I'm not very sympathetic. I've seen a lot worse, and I'm impatient with people who expect other people to sort out their problems, their children, their lives. As a friend you should help her out if the state lets her down; you're her friend, the landlord isn't, and yet you expect someone who's not her friend to help her out.

anyway yy to all those saying it will now take forever because of the dispute

"the landlord is unable to evict without a court order. Fact."

See this is annoying. As if that gives anyone the perfect right to force him to court.

If she has a trust fund she ought to contact the holders of the trust, usually if the money is due to be released at say, 25 years of age but the recipient fall on hard times in the mean time the money, or some of it can be released earlier. My old boyfriend had a trust fund he was due to get at 25 but he got it at 21 to pay for some medical treatment he needed. It would be well worth looking into.

at the end of the day the landlord has no repsonsibility towards her - if he needs the house back he has the right to have it back.

how much is the trust fund potentially? enough to buy the property outright?

or will she be using as deposit and trying to get mortgage company to lend to her the rest based on benefits?

if she coming into that kind of money in near future (relatively) then as biggest says - surely she could ask trustees to release some now?

it sounds a bit weird that if she is going to come into such a large sum of money in two years time, that she she cant actually access anything right now - or doesnt have eg rich relatives who can hep her out eg with a deposit? but i dont know anything about trust funds so i guess it could be the case...

anyway - i know lady single parent with one chill who was evicted coz rented flat was sold, (ie got the relevant paper to say you being evicted etc) council put them in flat in diff borough on train some miles away, but she kept child on at same school and was on list - so six months later she has got a decent council flat within easy reach of school. so she and child had to commute 45 minutes to s hool for six months or so.

GB why are you so keen to pin the blame on her?

I think your anger needs to be directed towards the council who refuse to help unless you have a court order to be booted out. You literally need to be on the street with your children before they will help.

She doesn't want to force her LL to court, unfortunately the way the council allocate houses means she may have to. What would you rather she does? Would you rather she left voluntarily, thereby saving him the hassle of going to court (which would cost him nothing) but meaning that she was out on the street or sleeping on the sofas of friends and relatives with her kids? Is that what you'd rather she did?

And as for paying for her, well I don't see how the fact that she is on benefits should anger you so much. I'm sure when she is successful with her degree course and starts work as a midwife she will be giving back much more to the community. I don't mind paying my tax for young people who have ambition and plans and work hard to get where they want to go, which is exactly what she is doing.

cestlavie - she told me she had turned down access to her trust fund this year so it's too late to have it now, she will need to wait another year. The fund is for £50k so enough for a deposit but, and I hated to tell her, she won't get a mortgage because she'll be a student with no income. However the father of her children lives in a bedsit out of town and they are hoping to live together soon, so he may be able to get a mortgage on his wages.

She has spoken to Shelter, who gave the advice on the eviction process and what she needed to do in order to get on the council waiting list. It's their advice GB to wait until she is forcibly evicted in order to make sure the council house her.

Anyway, if the woman wants to sell it and the man doesn't then there may well be a legal battle which will takes ages to settle so she's breathing a sigh of relief for now.

It's not really fair of her LL to imply that she could stay there for years, encouraging her to get her kids in the local school etc and then turn around and say he wants her out in 2 months. I know it's within his right, but perhaps he should have thought about this situation before he lead her on with talk of her settling down and making a life for herself here?

I still think it would be worth suggesting contacting the holders of the trust because there is usually a clause for unforeseen circumstances, irrelevant of what she has/hasn't done already this year.

That is an option she could look at, but I think for now she is going to wait and see what happens. She is hoping they will leave it as it is as she is paying £600pcm which is more than their mortgage, so they'd be mad to give that up. If they are disagreeing then it gives her more time at least. Perhaps if they come back and say they've agreed to sell then she might be as well to have a word with the trust fund - I've no idea how these things work, I've never had a trust fund! I think it's like the labour idea for kiddies? My ds has one and he can't touch it until he's 18, after that perhaps he can decide if he wants to keep it as a fund or spend it. Not that he'll have £50k to play with once he reaches her age!

Don't put words in my mouth - it doesn't anger me that she's on benefits: it angers me that she assumes the landlord should be the one to sort out her problems for her, forced to court and forced to pay (because he would probably not retrieve his costs).

But wait - she turned down a 50k trust fund last year as a single mother of two children and has instead been claiming HB and child tax credits??

Oh yes - I think it does anger me that she's claiming after all.

No sympathy.

Rhubarb0- the family my Mum is evicting have told a mutual acquaintance that they aren't bothered this time (we have discovered this is the 4th property they will have been evicted from) as they are already at the top of the council list. So it might be worth your friend rechecking the allocation procedure?

So basically, she isn't a single mother, but the father isn't supporting them, she's turned down a 50k trust fund to claim benefits and CT, and she's not a freeloader?

Are you joking?

Basically she brought this on herself and her children and you are the latest person to be used to sort it out for her.

Gooseberrybushes
With ref to the quote you highlighted from my post regarding court orders, just to let you know I was simply offering it as fact as it is the law, as annoying as it may be