What does a 62 year old man on just above minimum wage do when served with section 21 eviction notice and cannot afford anything on the current rental market?

[Mxflamingnoravera]

I have a friend aged 62 who has been living in a pretty awful but liveable one bed flat for six years. He works full time in a call centre on little more than minimum wage. The flat was recently assessed by the local authority as part of a new local licensing scheme for private rental properties in our city. It needs a lot of work done on it and today he was served with a section 21 order because (he was told) the builders say it's too much work to have him stay there whilst the place is brought up to standard.

He has looked around an there is nothing under £900 a month in our city. He cannot afford this. He has no car and cycles everywhere. So he needs to live fairly close to his workplace.

He is devastated, he cannot live in a shared house at his age. He is a very private, shy man, has few friends and no family.

I'm at a loss to know how to help him. He cannot live with me, i have no space and do not want a lodger.

There is literally nothing affordable in our city. He is looking at homelessness in January. What happens to people like him?

@Mxflamingnoravera Suggested this before but an electric bicycle would extend the range he can look at. OK not cheap but maybe a loan from work paid off gradually? This is not extortionate https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/mp/huffy/huffy-transic-adult-26inch-electric-mountain-bike-black-36v/_/R-p-ae64a9f3-435b-45dd-894a-c1a79607044a?utm_source=awin&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=Pepper+Deals+Ltd_47868&utm_content=www.hotukdeals.com&awc=26895_1699702615_01a480600442da24dbb21357dbcd582b

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/adults-and-older-people/housing-options-for-older-and-vulnerable-people/council-housing-50-housing

This lists all the over 50s council housing options. There are a lot in South Bristol. Then there are the extra care places as well which he may well qualify for with his disability requirements. These are mainly run by housing associations.

don't think he would be classed as intentionally homeless if he's received a valid notice to terminate the tenancy

He would be, in many places. You often can't leave until the bailiffs evict you, if you want help from the council.

He has a lifetimes' worth of possessions, a washing machine, a fridge, two bicycles, art work, chairs, double bed, tables and other furniture etc. his current flat is unfurnished, he has furnished it. Does he have to lose all his possessions along with his dignity?

Unfortunately that is often the case when you're homeless, unless you can afford to pay for a storage unit or a friend can store your possessions for you. I advise anyone who plans to use the council's homelessness procedure, and who doesn't have storage options, to sell anything they can. Because if you're going to lose it anyway upon eviction, you may as well get some money for it.

I'm fully aware that sharing may be his only option, I'm trying to help him avoid it. If it happens it will be a fast route to depression and giving up

At which point he'd be eligible for rehousing on MH grounds. Basically, you often have to be almost dead before you get any real help, sadly.

might be worth getting an appointment with a social worker at the council,

They're allocated based on need. You can't get access to a social worker just because you want one.

What you can more easily access is a Tenancy Support Worker. Either via the council or a charity. They provide help in accessing and maintaining tenancies, helping to overcome any obstacles to that. Investigate the charities in your area OP and ask the council too. Someone in your friend's position is likely to be eligible although sadly there may be a waiting list. Keep them informed as a change in circumstances could move him up the waitlist.

Over 55s via the housing association via the council's homelessness procedure is the best long term option, but in the short term probably will mean some form of shared temporary accommodation eg a hotel room. In my area at least, the one bed flats for temporary accommodation are reserved for families (there is no larger temporary accommodation). Sometimes they're given to the mentally ill, which is why persuing diagnosis (where applicable) is important.

OP your friend can register with the council even if he doesn't go through the homeless process. He can still bid on property whilst securely houses in a new private rental if that's the route he chooses. He'll just be a lower priority and will likely wait years. Although not as long as for a regular property because obviously the over 55s ones become available more often as mother nature takes her usual course. He can update his information with them if he ever faces eviction again. It's worth doing because the time you've been on the waitlist is taken into account when allocating properties, if all other circumstances are equal.

PIP doesn't depend on diagnosis but your symptoms are more likely to be believed if you have a diagnosis to link it to. Without a diagnosis you need more medical backup than with.

People are disabled whether they claim PIP or not, but the successful claiming of it is often the marker used when officially recognising someone's disability for the purpose of allocating resources. There's various help and support to those claiming PIP that isn't available to those not claiming it. It's shite but it's how it is.

As others have mentioned, he should also check with the utilities companies about their discount schemes for people in poverty, which he may qualify for.

Just caught up on the rest of the thread.

All the over 50s places seem to be on the north side of the city, it would triple his already long bike ride to work. Anyone who knows Bristol buses will know how hard it is to get across the city on the bus!

He will be working for another 5yrs. He will be renting a lot longer than that, hopefully! I suggest he puts his long term housing needs as higher priority than his short term work needs. He can look for another job. He doesn't want to have to go through this situation all over again every time he's evicted from private rental.

Assuming that he got decent over 50s housing he might be able to afford an electric bike?

Some employers do the Government Cycle to Work Scheme, loan deducted at source so no tax/ni and after so many years they basically write off the bike and the employee gets to keep it (he'd need a fixed address though for them to send paperwork for the contract etc.)

So I spent all day and late into the night with him yesterday. He is meticulous about keeping things and there is no evidence of the Guide to Rent, he moved into his place in July 2016, so it should have been served.

But even if the S21 is invalid he still needs to find somewhere. He has now applied for UC but we know that the agents will will not take this into consideration in the affordability check so he is scuppered with private rental.

Today we have just come across shared ownership and there is one flat left in a development near his work. It's a 40% share of a two bed apartment. I'm gently trying to get him to look at this option. He'd need to raise a mortgage and find a deposit. He could max out his two credit cards to raise the 5% of 88k and he'd need another £2.5k to pay fees. Mortgage would be approx £400 a month and rent and management another £230, but it's still cheaper than renting. Are we daft to consider this?

He has a list a mile long of things to do this week including a doctors appointment, an optician's appointment (his eyesight is -3.75), a council housing visit. A pip telephone appt. All that and trying to hold his job down.

You sound like such a good friend. I can't advise on shared ownership, unfortunately, but I hope he can get some PIP (and UC), and that he finds a good place to 'land'. It's a really tough situation. Good luck to him.

Have you looked first at whether he could get a mortgage?
Given he is 62 already - and I'm going to assume he doesn't have much of a private pension - then I think you would struggle to find anyone to lend to him.
Are you in a position to act as guarantor for him?
He also doesn't need two bedrooms, surely? So if would struggling to pay to rent/mortgage and heat s property bigger than he needs and that doesn't sound sensible.

There is only one place left on shared ownership in Bristol, and it's two bedrooms. There are mortgages that are lifetime and the mortgage company then recover their capital after death- or maybe I'm thinking pie in the sky here.

On private rents- there is one place available that's suitable, he's emailed for a viewing.

Unfortunately he won't be able to use a credit card to fund a deposit. Banks won't accept that.

Hopefully he gets the help he needs from the council.

Has he ever been a homeowner before or has he always rented?

I’m not sure shared ownership would necessarily be a good idea for him - bear in mind he’d be responsible for all internal maintenance, service charges etc can go up a lot and if the property needs major work he’d also need to find a share of the money for that (I’m assuming it’s a leasehold flat here, so he gets less of a say about timing / cost of works etc)

Yeah I thought it might be case about the shared ownership. Oh well, back to the drawing board. :( I was a nice idea for a few minutes.

You mention his sight isn't good and he has an optician's appointment this week. Can you ask him to ask them if his sight is so poor that he qualifies as visually impaired. It seems to involve the Snellan test and fields of vision.

Most likely he isn't (although I was surprised when they told me my mum's eyesight was poor enough that she could register). But if he's at the optician anyway, it's a one minute question and if he is visually impaired he gets help with council tax, tv licence, tax allowances and transport fares.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/vision-loss/

Does his landlord have any other property? If they do ask if he can be temporarily rehoused elsewhere with a view to moving back to the renovated property, paying a higher rent but claiming universal credit. if he has always paid his rent the landlord would be pretty stupid to lose a good tenant just because he needs universal credit to make a higher rent.

PIP telephone appointment? That's not to do the actual application process is it? He ideally needs the form sent out and to apply in writing. The questions are basically trick questions designed to trip people up and not designed to extract the information they need to provide for a successful claim. If he's ND he's going to struggle even more than someone usually would. He seems the stoical type to just carry on, since he's not claiming anything already and those types tend to minimise everything, taking questions like how far can you walk to mean without collapsing for example when that's not the case at all. If he doesn't have true insight into how things affect him or fully understand what the vague questions mean, he won't be able to give accurate answers. These claims are set up so that as much as possible people fail them. He may need help from someone to fill in the form. They don't like people to have that help so they don't like sending out the forms and try to make people do it all by phone instead. Although if the claim fails he can and should appeal. Many are overturned at appeal.

-3.75 is not a strong prescription??

I'm exhausted now after two days of helping him get stuff done but we've done loads. Letters to MP and local councillor (thank you to the kind poster who recommended our MPs office) and thanks also to chat GPT which wrote some great letters. We've written a grievance letter to his workplace about pay (my friend and a small group of colleagues were not moved onto the company wide tier system so we've raised a grievance to ask why not and alert them to their poor pay levels resulting in my friend needing to claim benefits just to live).
The UC claim is started, we have a letter about the non service of the Guide to rent if needed- but he is keeping his powder dry on that one. He has a to to list for this week to see the dr, the optician and view one flat that might be ok if he can pass the affordability test. It's with the same agents as his current one so hopefully it means no references are needed and they know he's a good tenant.
Yesterday he was shaking and crying, today he feels stronger and ready to take on the system. I just hope he remembers to say everything he needs to say to the GP. I've written him a checklist to take and instructions to say it's urgent and cannot wait for a routine appointment.
He's going to call the homeless line at the council tomorrow and go there if necessary to get onto their list and get an assessment.
There's more to do but the poor man is bewildered and frozen in fight or flight.

@Discomboobulated I think -3.75 is a strong prescription. His specs are so thick it makes his eyes look huge.

Oh I and he has the number to start the pip but he wants to see the GP first.

It really isn’t a strong prescription, so it may just be the particular kind of glasses.

I’m only mentioning it because that is the sort of thing not to put on the PIP form, if you were thinking about that - as it’s a very, very normal prescription and wouldn’t get any points.

@Discomboobulated
That s not a strong prescription.
My son of 32 is -5.75 and has his lenses thinned.
He can see fine with his glasses on.

Thanks for the info about glasses, I just thought that because they were so thick it must be strong, I'm clearly no optician!

That's not a strong prescription and wouldn't mean glasses were excessively thick. DH's prescription is -6 and I have a friend whose prescription is -8 (though she usually wears lenses).

.