How to get someone out of your property who refuses to go

[despairingmum4]

My son (in his 30s) has drink and drug issues and makes bad decisions.

At the end of May, he let a "friend" into his flat and now this person refuses to leave. My son is now working abroad. We were alerted to the situation by an anonymous letter from someone in the street who was concerned about the situation (the person in the house has been to prison and has other criminals over) and also had concerns that our son was intimidated into letting him in. The person occupying does not pay rent (although he has loaned my son a significant amount of money) and done some work on the property. We have paid him for this work on the basis of invoices he has submitted and photos of the work. We have agreed to pay him the money he loaned to our son and part paid him this. He refuses to leave. We have served him (through a solicitor) with a notice to quit but he is still there. Our solicitor is now going to try and get a court order to remove him. The person occupying says he will fight the application as he has a two year old daughter who stays with him some nights and we can't make him homeless. This all started about 8 weeks ago so he has had plenty of time to find somewhere else to live. Solicitor says it will take 3 months to get him out using the legal process. He says he will go if we pay him the full amount of the money our son borrowed, but we don't want to do that until he has moved out. Stalemate! In the meantime, he has had a skip delivered to the flat's parking bay (person is a builder) and this is breaching one of the covenants of the flat as it is only to be used for parking. We think a breach could end up with our son being taken to court by the management company.

We are so upset about the whole thing it would be really good to hear outsiders' objective views of what to do about this and get him out. Is there a way we can safely pay him the money and ensure he moves out? He is a really bad person so we can't trust him.

Sorry for the long read!

PS As soon as he is out, son will sell the flat and son has agreed to repay us the loan and legal costs from sale proceeds.

So his daughter comes and stays too?!

Your son…. Bloody hell, what a selfish knob

Yes, apparently, although it could be a ploy to keep staying there.

Indeed. We've never been able to work out if he's mad, sad or bad. I know it would be tempting to say just walk away but ...

Your son should be dealing with this. My guess is that there's a lot that you aren't aware of regarding the financial situation.

Have you got a key?

When he leaves for work can you go in and get the locks changed?

And put his belongings in the skip?

this has just got very weird

I was going to say the same as @pilates! if there’s no rental agreement, is there actually anything stopping you doing that? I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there is a reason you can’t, even though that would be batshit.

But I’m more in agreement with @Motnight. This is absolutely nothing to do with you. I wouldn’t get involved and spare myself the worry.

Unless it’s actually you that owns the flat / pays the mortgage / is a guarantor for your son’s rent - he’s in his 30s FFS, why are you even involved?!

He has a reputation for violence and has been to prison. The letter we received was anonymous because the neighbours are scared of him. He phones son and threatens him but is careful not to put anything in writing. He knows where we live so we need to be careful about how we go about things.

Not really weird. He thinks he has a better chance of fighting the court order if he says there is a small child involved.

Your son needs to do this.

Why are you doing it for him?

So so weird
his young child comes over and stays the night (in “his” bedroom?). Presumably he cooks in your kitchen? Presumably the child talks to you? Sits in the lounge? You open the door to her and let her in?

Report him to SS

We are involved because son has learning difficulties and is incapable of doing anything about it. Because of various other things that have happened with him, the police have categorised him as a vulnerable person. We helped him to buy the flat and are reluctant to see our hard-earned after-tax money go down the toilet. This man will never leave unless WE make him. Son is too scared/incompetent to do anything. He has agreed that the sale proceeds of flat will go into a trust that we will manage for him so that nothing like this will happen again.

We don't live there! It is our son's flat and he is working abroad.

Quite possibly!

Your son’s flat

🤷‍♀️

so leave him to it.

move in to the flat yourself! Kick back, spread yourself out. See how he likes that

And yet he’s away working abroad?

Thanks. My picture of an adult man able to work abroad was different to how you describe him.

It’s going to take a long time and money to get him out of your DS’s flat, watching tv programmes about getting people evicted seems to take over a year. I also wonder whether the management company can help as usually you have to inform them if anyone else lives there. It might be cheaper and easier to pay him back the loan. Is he actually doing the work that’s needed, are you able to go round and check.

This is called cuckooing. When a person uses threats or violence to essentially move into a vulnerable person’s house. It’s a crime. You can go to the police about this.

Mine too.

I’m not sure what you’re asking for. You’ve sought legal advice and your solicitor has told you what to do. The “friend” has ignored the Notice to Quit so the next step is to issue possession proceedings.

You’ll get an order to vacate. He’ll ignore that. So you then instruct high court enforcement officers to physically evict him.

It’s a lengthy and expensive process.

Pay him his money
let the solicitor carry on - 3 months is not that long.
Get the flat on the market.