Terrified of losing children 😞

[charM89]

Okay here's my story any advice please...
I'm private renting, our landlord is evicting us for 2 reasons...
he's selling (no argument ofcourse I understand he needs/wants to sell)
ground 13- we have deteriorated the condition of the property (this one I'm arguing here's why)
We have lived in the property for 10 years, we have had many structual repairs that needed doing, I approached the landlord who told us that due to us not ventilating property it's caused the damp and mould.
I went and bought dehumidifiers, opened windows etc... cleaned all the mould off however the mould would always return!
I called environmental health round an improvement notice was served to the landlord, he was advised of every repair that himself as a landlord needed to fix!
However this was not followed up as the envirmental health officer at the time passed away.
However the landlord was still aware of the problems and chose to not do them!
I contacted environmental health again recently as the damp,mould and other issues were still not resolving no matter how much we cleaned the mould or using a dehumidifier.
A new improvement notice was served to the landlord.
He has now issued us with a section 8 notice using grounds 1a and 13 :(
Again I'm not arguing that he needs to sell, but ground 13 I find extremely unfair as most of the condtion of this property is down to him!
He is now also increasing our rent :(
Ofcourse there are days we forget to open windows and we don't always keep the home to a high level of cleaning, I have depression and anxiety (have done since my son passed) my partner is autistic our 4 year old is autistic and I have a typical teenager!
If we're found to be intentionally homeless due to ground 13 the council won't help us and we are passed to social services which could mean we lose our children :(

I feel like you aren't listening to anyone on this thread OP,and just keep declaring they'll 'take the children'.

Several people have explained really well that this just isn't so.Try and let that sink in,before the thread goes nasty and you get more wound up and panicky.

OP has worked herself into a state of anxiety and is just here seeking reassurance. This is, unfortunately for her, how anxiety works, as fast as reassurance is given the good old 'but what about...' rears its ugly head. Hopefully the fact that everyone is saying the same thing - that nobody is going to take her children - will get through the panic and help her.

Section 20 is VOLUNTARY so no, they cannot just take your children.
I am a social worker of many years experience and I PROMISE you we don't take children into care because their parents have been made intentionally homeless.

I truly do hate anxiety :( honestly it eats me alive everyday are you really a social worker? Cause if you are ofc I'm going to listen to your advice

Last question I promise...

What if we are intentionally homeless and social services literally have no spaces to accommodate the whole family and my parents house wasn't an option meaning we would be on the streets.

What would happen then?

Social services don't have housing. If you couldn't go to your parents (why not?) they would do an assessment with you to see whether you are really without options and to see how they can help you get into private renting. This would be a joint assessment with social services and housing professionals of some kind (we have a specialist team who deal with section 17 housing IE exactly this situation)
If you genuinely had no other option then they would find somewhere privately rented for you to stay temporarily. You'd have to pay towards the rent. It might be a bed and breakfast or a small flat. They would allocate a social worker to you and a housing worker who would set you goals and help you move out into your own privately rented accommodation.
Three things you absolutely need to understand -
1- it's none of social services' concern if you're overcrowded in your own home, whether that's with family or your own place. There is no law against being overcrowded and it's only relevent for housing provision purposes.
2- section 20 is voluntary. Social services cannot take your children under section 20 without your consent. Only the police or the court can remove children without parental consent and trust me, that's for actual severe abuse and neglect, never ever for just housing issues.
3 - social services do not have enough foster carers for the children who ARE being abused and neglected. They don't waste them on children of loving parents who are in housing crisis. And please - rent costs between £1000-2000 a month. Foster care costs almost £1000 a week per child, at the least. What makes you think they would rather spend that kind of money on foster care than on helping you find a property!?

Have you approached the council for assistance in relation to finding a new property since being given notice? If so, what have they said in response? Have they even mentioned intentional homelessness?

Yes we've approached them, basically our landlord has given us an eviction notice as he wants to sell
However he is also claiming that the the condition of the home has deteriorated due to us as tenants neglecting the home.

If he wins based on this them the council would see us as intentionally homeless meaning they no longer have a duty to rehome us and it goes to social services

Of course there are days we forget to open windows and we don't always keep the home to a high level of cleaning, I have depression and anxiety (have done since my son passed) my partner is autistic our 4 year old is autistic and I have a typical teenager!

I noticed this is put right at the end as though it is a casual aside and quite harmless and not really important at all, except that you are mentioning it.

So what is the effect of this on the children? If it’s not important, why mention it, particularly as your teenager is just, apparently, a “typical“ teenager?

On the other hand, since you think it’s significant enough to mention it: how much of a problem is this, really?

I understand that. But what has the council said in response to you approaching them?

Move in with your mum, that is great family support, once settled think of your options. Can your partner work more to then afford to rent again or buy eventually in the future if you both work hard. Give the kids the bedroom at your mums and sleep in the living room, or you sleep in with youngest in the bedroom and the teen sleeps in the living room at night. Family comfort is important, see how it goes after that...

I've messaged you xx

The chances of the court making the finding you’ve made yourself intentionally homeless when you’ve got a huge paper trail of evidence that you’ve been asking for help and he did nothing is VERY slim. You need to print out every report, document, email, text, picture etc and get it all together and then pop in to your local council’s housing team and ask them for support.
You should also google the name of your county and talking therapies and find your local provider so you can refer yourself for cbt, if you haven’t started this already.

If you refuse to open windows everyday to ventilate you are part of the damp problem. You need to ventilate all rooms for 10-15 mins twice a day, always keep heating to minimum of 18 in winter, use extractor fans every time in bathroom and keep bathroom door shut after a shower or bath, use saucepan lids in kitchen when cooking and use kitchen extractor fan to get rid of any steam from cooking and never dry washing on radiators. If you do all of that the damp is not your fault and it could be because of the building.

After the landlord blamed us, we started opening windows, using dehumidifiers we cleaned all the mould but no matter what happened the damp and mould returned this is why I went to environmental health

This is the report from environmental health

Your accommodation sounds grim and it looks from report you put up that leaks in roof are to blame for damp and mould. In your shoes I would be moving out ASAP not waiting for this awful LL to sell up. Try to find another rental. In any case SS will not remove your DC from you. There are not enough foster care placements to put them in. I know this because I'm a foster carer and only DC who are abused and neglected badly in their homes are removed and put in foster care. Even DC who are being mildly neglected and abused don't get put with foster carers.

Can I just say the bathroom has never shut since we've been here, the landlord was aware of that.

He has given us 2 section 21s in 3 years both been invalid (council said he never had the proper documents with them)
If a landlord so desperately wants to sell surely he would makesure he has all of the documents.

We've made changes to makesure it's not us causing the damp and mould! He had an improvement notice back in 2024 so he knew of the disrepairs and yet still chose to ignore them, so who is really allowing the property to deteriorate?

Also he has now increased our rent!

And what was the council's response when you got in touch about the eviction notice?

Social services do not provide accommodation. You have somewhere to live, with your parents. So go there

Sorry I just don't understand the process :(

I mean if social physically didn't have the space for the whole family ofc they would take the children.

Ofc we can temporary live with my family. But they are elderly and couldn't put us up for more than a few months, I would ofc be looking for a permanent home in this time.

But the council still wouldn't have a duty to rehome us due to the intentionally homeless :( I didn't know if that point I could make a new homeless application

This is getting stupid
Social services don't HAVE housing.
They WILL house you via the private rental sector if the alternative is street homeless. They WON'T take the children.
I'm not engaging further as this is not helping you at all.

That's why I asked what if they physically didn't have anywhere to home us altogether

Then you stay with your parents until you or the council find you somewhere which could be a hostel/b&b however far away.
I have been in a far dire situation than you where SS were involved and they didn’t take my dc. It is really expensive to put dc in foster care.

Forget about the notion you are making your family intentionally homeless. Just because your LL says so doesn’t make it fact. Speak to your local housing department. Go on the housing list. Be as flexible as you can with location. Some private LLs actively work with LAs to house people in your situation. But kindly you need to get a grip in any way you can in order to advocate for your family. Your LL is obviously a shit one but although in the short term he is causing you all this stress, in the longer term this could well be the best thing that has happened to you.

Thankyou ❤️ honestly I wish I could help my anxiety I've had it since my son passed and it cripples me :(
This is why I always ask about worse case scenario so I know that no matter what I have a plan in place