Council didn't bother to reply to my housing appeal, help and advice please!

[Laughlivelove3002]

Hi so basically my house has been sold by the landlord and she have me a notice to leave (may 5th) so the council has put me into silver banding, however ...

The landlord has been trying to sell the house for the last 4 years putting and pulling the house off the market, I've had viewing and even through the pandemic it's just made me feel really anxious and depressed all these years off feeling threatened with homelessness, my doctor suggested I speak to the council and wrote me a doctors letter as medical evidence about my anxiety and stress. The council explained that there decision was to put me into bronze banding because the house at this point has not been sold yet and my medical need wasn't bad enough to be in silver banding.
So I appealed this decision and made a appeal explaining that my stress and anxiety could be decreased if I was to move, this was made on the 23rd off September. I was told to expect a long wait as they where very busy with appeals. We are now in January I rang them last week and the women on the phone was confused as to why I haven't had a reply, so she rang me back and said after speaking to the appeal office who reviewed it and she thought the appeal would need to be appealed again as I was already on a silver banding. I explained why have I not been told about this and they haven't even bothered to respond to me. The women on the phone agreed and even said I could have possibly been rehoused by now if she would have responded to me. She has made a complaint for me to the appeals manager, what do you think I should do just let it lie or take it further? Thing is my doctor has put my sertraline up to 150mg last week because off my anxiety due to the eviction so to think that I could have been rehoused by now is really frustrating

There are two issues here: in terms of your appeal, it sounds as if the council failed to follow their own policies and procedures with regard to handling an appeal and a complaint has been raised on your behalf? In which case, look up the policy and procedure for complaints on you council’s website so that you know when and how they should provide you with a response to your complaint, and escalate if necessary.

Regarding your housing issue: council housing is in very short supply all over the country. There will be thousands of people waiting for housing, many of them in significant need due to serious disability or medical issues. As far as the council is concerned, until you have a formal notice from bailiffs to vacate the property you are adequately housed and thus not a priority. It’s therefore unlikely you’ll be moved up a band until you are actually imminently homeless, at which point the likelihood is you’ll be offered temporary hostel or B&B accommodation.

I worked in social housing for years. At least 80% of the people on the housing waiting list had a GP’s letter on file stating that they were depressed and on some kind of antidepressant and recommending they were housed urgently. This alone will not make you a priority case. There simply isn’t enough housing available to house everyone whose current accommodation makes them feel stressed or depressed. If you don’t have children and are in work or jobseeking, your best bet is to look for an alternative private rented property, as this is what the council will encourage you to do even if they do offer you temporary accommodation initially.

Regarding the appeal about being downgraded from silver to bronze (your post is difficult to follow, but I think this is what you are appealing?) if you haven’t had a response, resubmit the appeal based on the timeline and the facts, and request that it be backdated as they misrepresented the facts in their previous response to your appeal. Don’t get into hearsay like “the women in the phone said I would have been rehoused already” because the customer advisor for the appeals section likely knows next to nothing about the housing services department, and the longer and more difficult to interpret your appeal is, the less likely you are to get a satisfactory response.

Do you have somebody who could help you write your appeal? Have you spoken with Citizen’s Advice? As your post here is quite difficult to understand and jumps all over the place, it may be helpful to you to have guidance to write more clearly to have more impact.