Aug
17
Don’t ever deal with DSS council tenants…ever…! The council housing officers in the homeless persons units up and down the country, but especially in London, are advising tenants to ignore Section 21 notices. They are also advising tenants to ignore Court Orders for Possession. They are saying that if the tenant leaves before they are physically evicted by a court bailiff, they are making themselves intentionally homeless and therefore are not eligible for council accommodation or emergency accommodation.
This is the stance being adopted by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets homeless persons unit. This is a total contradiction to what I was told by the housing manager, Noella Ling, of Tower Hamlets Housing. She told me at a recent Tower Hamlets Landlords Forum that they routinely ignored section 21 notices because of the perceived risk of collusion between the landlord and the tenant to obtain council accommodation. They don’t take into account any background or circumstances surrounding the section 21 notice being issued. Then the landlord is forced to prepare papers and files and apply to the court for a possession order. This costs £175. Once possession is ordered by the courts, the tenant then takes the order to the homeless persons unit and asks to be re-housed. The homeless persons unit officer (or housing options officer -- in this case Andre Melvin) instructs the tenant to ignore the warrant for possession and refuses to re-house her (or the tenant refuses the council’s offer of accommodation because it’s not exactly what she wants!).
End result? I have to spend yet more money and waste more time arranging bailiffs to come and evict her so that she can take the letter of eviction to the homeless persons unit verifying she’s been evicted and the locks have been changed before the council will re-house her!
What a crazy situation and that is why I am advising all landlords in the private rental sector (PRS) to boycott council tenants and stop giving their properties to agents that promote “guaranteed rent schemes”, “leasing schemes” and other schemes that invariably involve council tenants and tenants on DSS.
In tough times there is a flight to quality. It happens in the financial industry, so why not in the residential property market?