Councils must follow Housing Ministers guidance on rehousing applicants

Brandon Lewis the Housing minister has sent out correspondence to every local council to provide clear and precise guidance on homelessness.

Richard Merrick of PIMS, said: “We welcome this guidance, as it is a common known fact that most councils will tell tenants, who have received eviction notices, to stay put until the bailiffs come in and then they will re-house them.”

The councils who are offering this advice are contradicting government guidance that says they must look to re-house tenants as soon as the eviction notices are served; and not when a possession order has been granted by a court.

Brandon Lewis’ correspondence says: “The statutory Homelessness Code of Guidance, which local authorities are required by law to have regard to, is clear on this matter.

“It contains guidance on how authorities should treat homelessness applications in circumstances where a tenant has received a valid S21 notice.

“It says that housing authorities should not, in every case, insist upon a court order for possession and that no local authority should adopt a blanket policy in this respect.

“Unless a local authority has very good reason to depart from the statutory guidance, then they should not be placing households in this position.”

Edicts from the Housing Ministers are wonderful but in terms of the reality facing Landlords PIMS suspect little will change and abuse will continue

  • Tenant not paying rent – the council are not obliged to house them for they made themselves voluntarily home so will tell them to stay put until court order and Bailiff.
  • NEW- Preventing retaliatory eviction The landlord serves notice and the council inspect the property – should they find fault then the landlord is NOT entitled to reserve a new notice for a further 6 months. Therefore no risk of them being homeless
  • 4 million people want a council house and there aren’t 4 million free homes so council.
  • Economics vs reality – as a example a mother with three children is served a notice to vacate. If the council provide emergency housing at expiry of the notice then the council incur significant fees for B&B whereas if they delay eviction and leave the problem with the landlord they could save 8 weeks B&B for two rooms. What do you think the council will do?

Blog Post from PIMS.co.uk

Central Housing Group’s ‘Guaranteed Rent’ Scheme protects landlords from the substantial risk of rent arrears, costly evictions and wilful tenant damage. Our landlords are paid an agreed monthly Guaranteed Rent for the duration of the term of their contract regardless of their tenants’ financial or employment circumstances and regardless of whether their property is occupied or not.

Landlords – please carefully consider the risks you run by choosing to let your property privately when, instead, you can let your property on our ‘Guaranteed Rent’ Scheme and protect yourself from any rental loss exposure or legal eviction costs. 

When you let your property on our ‘Guaranteed Rent’ Scheme either our local authority clients will assume full legal and financial responsibility for the eviction of your tenants or we will, depending on the nature of the letting of your property – consequently you can be assured that you will not incur any legal eviction costs at all when letting your property to us and, furthermore, you can also be assured that you will continue to receive full monthly rental payments from us until vacant possession of your property has been lawfully obtained!

If you are interested in finding our more about our ‘Guaranteed Rent’ Scheme, currently operating in north, east & west London, please call us today on 020 8447 1222.

See details of our Guaranteed Rent Scheme here
See details of Rent to the Council here

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