Post 689003 by jamesy12345 on 2014-02-11 21:41:28
I don't want to make this sound like an episode of Benefit Street...but....my grandma, who is 93, has just been 'served' with a eviction/demolition notice from the local council.
Almost every house in the street has been knocked down and the area grassed over. Now (surprise surprise) some developers have offered the council some silly sum of money in the hope of making an even sillier sum of money. By building houses where before there was....some houses. The only properties left out of three streets of about 25 houses each, is a group of 4 up the road (inhabited by bats!!) and hers.
She is alone in the house and to be honest is losing the plot a little bit. But our family live in the next street and she gets looked after well with carers 4times a day and meals-on-wheels etc. The nice people from the council came around today to hand the letter over to us, without providing any suitable alternative accommodation. At 93 I don't think shifting house would do her any good.
They don't have planning permission yet but the cheeky £££££££s came to tell me, incorrectly, that I couldn't apply to buy her house because they were thinking of making a cosmic ££££-tonne of money, well not exactly those words but I could see that in their greedy little eyes. They even suggested helpfully why don't we buy a house for her somewhere else....after she has been in social housing since 1953, paying their wages!!
I'm hacked off so I thought I would post this up. I feel an Arthur Dent moment coming on (lying in front of bulldozers). The plan is to continue with the Right to Buy application, object to the planning application when it comes up and get some legal advice too.
Post 689029 by artfulflounder on 2014-02-11 22:49:45
So sorry to hear that.....Unfortunately I cant offer any advice but certainly hope that you receive the help you're after.
Post 689031 by jamesy12345 on 2014-02-11 22:51:59
[QUOTE=artfulflounder;689029]So sorry to hear that.....Unfortunately I cant offer any advice but certainly hope that you receive the help you're after.[/QUOTE]
I was just venting off to be honest but if someone has had similar experiences would be great to know about it....it supposed to be Labour round here not Conservative.....all the same now I guess - sell out!
Post 689049 by munster732 on 2014-02-12 05:21:31
They did something similar round a
Post 689056 by rikcougar on 2014-02-12 08:06:59
I would go to the local papers and have a word with them
Evicting a 93 year old woman without offering any assistance is not good PR and may actually be illegal
They may well do some digging and find out a bit more than the council want them to know!
Good luck with whatever you decide to do but I do think that throwing your grandma out of the house that she has lived in all of her life is immoral and not what councils are supposed to do
Post 689057 by M-R-P on 2014-02-12 08:22:01
[QUOTE=jamesy12345;689003]I don't want to make this sound like an episode of Benefit Street...but....my grandma, who is 93, has just been 'served' with a eviction/demolition notice from the local council.
Almost every house in the street has been knocked down and the area grassed over. Now (surprise surprise) some developers have offered the council some silly sum of money in the hope of making an even sillier sum of money. By building houses where before there was....some houses. The only properties left out of three streets of about 25 houses each, is a group of 4 up the road (inhabited by bats!!) and hers.
She is alone in the house and to be honest is losing the plot a little bit. But our family live in the next street and she gets looked after well with carers 4times a day and meals-on-wheels etc. The nice people from the council came around today to hand the letter over to us, without providing any suitable alternative accommodation. At 93 I don't think shifting house would do her any good.
They don't have planning permission yet but the cheeky £££££££s came to tell me, incorrectly, that I couldn't apply to buy her house because they were thinking of making a cosmic ££££-tonne of money, well not exactly those words but I could see that in their greedy little eyes. They even suggested helpfully why don't we buy a house for her somewhere else....after she has been in social housing since 1953, paying their wages!!
I'm hacked off so I thought I would post this up.[COLOR="#B22222"] I feel an Arthur Dent moment coming on (lying in front of bulldozers)[/COLOR]. The plan is to continue with the Right to Buy application, object to the planning application when it comes up and get some legal advice too.[/QUOTE]
In case anybody doesn't remember...
[video=youtube;HNmIQX_ImgM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNmIQX_ImgM[/video]
And for those who don't realise, the TV show came after the radio version and only keeps a couple of the original actors :)
Post 689058 by stribo on 2014-02-12 08:37:56
To make it worse, the bats (being a protected species) have more rights than your Grandmother. They won't be able to do anything with the bat inhabited houses, and may struggle to get them moved ever.
Post 689066 by cherry1809 on 2014-02-12 10:01:33
I can relate a bit. I'll send a PM :)
Post 689088 by JUDGENINJA on 2014-02-12 12:42:49
It's a very sad situation. What type of contract does she have? I'm going to assume Assured tenancy as it has been in place since 1950's. So to evict your grandparent they will need a court order, which you can fight on a couple of levels.
They won't be able to commence a possession order unit after the two month notice period and even them you can object to it.
One note : ensure that you keep paying the rent otherwise your case will be at a disadvantage.
Being purely objective regarding council/social housing, the property is not your grandparents, therefore with in the law they can opt to do what ever they want with the property. As with most things a different department would deal with rehoming.
Post 689341 by jamesy12345 on 2014-02-13 22:36:56
Thanks very much for the comments gents! Stribo's made me laugh we said this also. I knew you would get that reference, MRP :)
[QUOTE=JUDGENINJA;689088]It's a very sad situation. What type of contract does she have? I'm going to assume Assured tenancy as it has been in place since 1950's. So to evict your grandparent they will need a court order, which you can fight on a couple of levels.
They won't be able to commence a possession order unit after te two month notice period and even them you can object to it.
One note : ensure that you keep paying the rent otherwise your case will be at a disadvantage.
Being purely objective regarding council/social housing, the property is not your grandparents, therefore with in the law they can opt to do what ever they want with the property. As with most things a different department would deal with rehoming.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, Judge, I'm sure they are lots of things that need to be done before we get to the eviction stage. For example no planning application has been lodged yet. Yes it's their property I was just hacked off at they way it was handled. The guy who came out could not answer the most basic questions like status of planning application, boundaries of the development, timescale for construction... and gave incorrect information like we could not submit a Right to Buy application. Another failing was that the right to appeal the demolition notice was not mentioned - we had to find this out for ourselves.