Is this an offence?

[cymruambyth]

Good.

Just remember the offers of advice and help from the site team.

[noomill060]

Go get 'em, Kat!

[MrMT]

Thanks for letting us know you've secured a new home for now, albeit imperfect one and it's good to know you finally get to sleep at nights!

 

That's dreadful behaviour from someone. Has anyone admitted the eviction saga?

[sosumi]

Kat, have you contacted Community Legal Advice?

This is the web page:

Losing your Home - Legal Information 7

Get free confidential legal advice now

 

Call 0845 345 4 345

Community Legal Advice:

 

• A free, confidential and impartial advices service paid for by legal aid
  
• Mon - Fri 9am - 6:30pm
  
• Calls from 4p/min - or get us to call you back
  

[Happyfeet24]

thrown our remaining stuff into the street (and rather bizzarely her stuff that was there when we moved in),

 

She's lucky not to also obtain a huge fine for fly tipping. No one else is allowed to do that.

 

Might be worth looking into

[MrMT]

Personally, I'd be more interesting in having the offenders arrested for burglary, trespass, illegal eviction or whatever is appropriate plus theft and/or criminal damage to property and belongings.

[ukaviator]

The Protection from Eviction Act 1977 states that unlawful eviction is where any person unlawfully deprives or attempts to deprive a residential occupier of his or her occupation of the premises without going through correct legal procedures.

 

The only defence a landlord has against a claim of illegal eviction is if they genuinely believed that the occupier had permanently left the property.

 

Acts of illegal evictions include:

 

Changing locks when you are out

 

Being physically thrown out of all or part of your home

 

Physically stopping you from entering your home.

 

In most cases, the landlord must obtain a possession order from a county court after serving a valid Notice to Quit. If you receive a notice, you should not leave or give your keys back to your landlord. You do not have to leave when your notice expires .

 

Only the court can decide whether you have to leave the property. It will normally take several weeks before your case is decided in court. If the court grants possession to your landlord, you may have to pay their court costs.

 

Exceptions to the normal rules are your landlord does not need to obtain a court possession order to evict you if:

 

You have a resident landlord with whom you share facilities, like the kitchen and bathroom.

 

You are not paying any rent for your accommodation.

 

In these cases, your landlord is only required to give you reasonable notice to leave the property. Once the notice has elapsed, you then become a trespasser and your landlord can legally change the locks at the property.

 

It is an offence under the Criminal Law Act 1977 for the landlord to use violence, or threaten to use violence, in order to enter a property when someone inside is opposed to that entry.

 

The Protection from Eviction Act 1977, amended by Housing Act 1988, makes it a criminal offence to harass or unlawfully evict a residential occupier.

Kat please get the press involved. . . .

[Happyfeet24]

Personally, I'd be more interesting in having the offenders arrested for burglary, trespass, illegal eviction or whatever is appropriate plus theft and/or criminal damage to property and belongings.

 

Completely agree.

 

Just that fly tipping was the only offence that hadn't been mentioned and if justice is to be served then all offences need to be looked at. Fly tipping serves an extremely high fine if proven and on top of every other wrong doing by this evil ex land lady then it would be a nice finishing touch to seeing justice completed. I was also confiused why the police said it wasn't a police matter? Fair enough if for whatever legal reason they didn't want to get involved in the wrongful eviction but to say that fly tipping wasn't anything to do with them is just crazy!?

[thekat1979]

OK guys - I'm still really nervous of getting the press involved.

 

BUT, I would like to try and get the police to take this seriously, but don't know where to start. Would i write a letter to the police station stating everything that has happened and the offences that I think have been committed?

[Von Greenbach]

Hi Kat

 

Phone you police headquarters and ask for the name of the police superintendant for your area, then contact him / her.

 

You may also like to send a copy of your complaint to the chairperson of your local police authority.

[cymruambyth]

Kat,

If you haven't already contacted the site team please do so. They have a wealth of knowledge and contacts who could help you with your complaints.

I understand that you are worried about involving the press, however, you have ebeen badly treated by many people and this should not be allowed to happen. Going by the council and police route does not seem to be working properly.

[thekat1979]

UPDATE

 

Three things to update on really.

 

1. Got an e-mail via Facebook from my ex-landlady a few days ago, which said I should be 'in prison not opposite it'...what for, I don't know. Very cryptic, but more alarming is that she seems to know where I now live. She's not on my Facebook friends at all, she's just searched me up and sent the message. That's now ben printed off, both the notification sent to my inbox AND the Facebook message itself.

 

2. We wrote to the letting agent five week ago asking them for info on where the deposit was held, and on Shelter's advice, tod them to offset the value of the goods thrown into the street against the rent arrears outstanding, which left us with just a small amount of outstanding rent. There were mainly cleaning products and stuff, came to about £250 in total. They were given seven days to respond, still not heard anything.

 

3. Spoke to Homeless section today. When we were at the last stages of the homeless stuff when we were still living in the house, we had a meeting with someone at homelessness and took a person from Shelter along with us. The person from Shelter specifically asked what was put by the letting agent in the form the council were so eager to get hold of which said the reasons for us being asked to leave. We were told then infront of the Shelter person, that it simply stated that the landlady wanted her property back. However, spoke to someone today, and she said the letting agent was VERY critical of us, stating that we had willfully withheld the shortfall on our rent after our LHA had been paid. and ha done for the whole of the tenancy and that was why we were asked to leave. That is utter nonsense, when we were asked to leave, at the absolute worst we were 1.5 weeks behind in rent, and have receipts for every payment we made to them. We did hit 2 months of arrears a week or so before our notice expired, but if memory serves me it was because some bank charges had eaten into it significantly and so the cheque I gave them didn't clear, but we then gave them as much as we could, and now owe practically nothing. We also had a benefit issue around that tim, where Income Support was stopped for no reason, so we didn't receive any Income Support for about five weeks. We got it backdated, but obviously that doesn't help at the time. We did get into trouble in those last 2 months after the notice was given, but it was purely that we couldn't continue paying the rent at the rate we were. LHA was considerably lower than we thought and barely covered half of the rent being asked, and we were using all of my Disability Living Allowance to cover the shortfall, hardly the 'willfull' refusal to pay the shortfall they are claiming. We've been told that the fact that the letting agent have said what they have will not do us any favours in our application as they are lily to think we made ourselves homeless intentionally. They did say though that the receipts should help us 'defend' our case. Grrr wish it was easier than this!

[JonCris]

So basically what your saying is your really no further forward.

 

Are either or both of you blind? Do you have guide dog?

 

If the answer to both is yes then contact the mods & go to the press NOW

[noomill060]

I can only echo what JonCris said.

[cymruambyth]

I agree. You seem to have lots of empty promises and don't appear to be any further forward. The press, if handled properly could help the 3 of you to find somewhere suitable.

[thekat1979]

UPDATE

 

Finally got the Council to say that we were not intentionally homeless. Apparently the letting agent told them that we'd never paid rent apart from the LHA we received. Nonsense and we had receipts to prove it, but because they'd said it, the Council had to 'fully investigate it' which took weeks. Apparently they said tis on the form they sent back that when we specifically asked them what was on it, they said that it stated hey just wanted the house back originally, but that appears to have changed. I'm looking forward to Subject Access Requesting them when all this is done!

 

On another note, last week they made us an offer of temporary accomodation that isn't a hostel. Good news you would think. However, they offered us a first floor one-bed flat with nowhere for Argus to go to the loo. (

 

Contacted them and they have agreed to withdraw that offer without penalty as it states quite clearly that we need a ground floor place and we are fighting with them over whethr we need 2 beds or not.

 

The 2-bed argument is really getting frustrated.

 

We have a letter from our old GP stating that we need ground floor accomodation and that we need 'additional space' for equipment.

 

We also have a letter from Guide Dogs stating that the size of my dog should be taken into account when looking at the size of a property, and that we also need an area that is for Argus' use to go to the loo which is at least five by five metres.

 

That wasn't good enough for their consultant - who has only JUST got involved. This should have been done when we first approached them, but nobody started this off to sort out the 2bed side of things, even though we made it quite clear that we needed additional spac.

 

Because that info wasn't good enough, we went to our new GP who wrote - on the back of a compliments slip as he wasn't allowed to write a proper letter unless they wrote to him - that due to a guide dog and low vision equipment, we needed a 2 bed property to accomodate this.

 

Apparently, the councils consultant told the council yesterday that this wasn't good enough to prove a need for a 2 bed property as it 'wasn't formal enough' and 'didn't give a full list of all equipment that is needed'.

 

They said they tried ringing TEN times and could not get through to the GP, only the secretary who couldn't gie out any information. So now, TODAY, they will be drafting a letter telling the GP that he needw to give a full breakdown of the equipment we have and why this constitutes a 2-bedroomed need.

 

The council have said that the guide dog is a lifestyle choice, that they have 'loads' of people claiming to need a second bedroom and for all they know I coul be making it up and so need every point - including what equipment I do or do not have - independently verifying.

 

Why is mty GP going to know what equipment I have? I asked the lady dealing with our case at the moment, and she said maybe I should go and see him, give him a list of my equipment and tell him to put that in his letter to the consultant! What?!

 

I'm fed up with this now, everything is being frustrated at every turn, and when I last got my MP involved, I was told that it was 'doing my case no good' and when they told the MP that we were going through the process the same as anyone else would, they said OK and told me they were satisfied. So if I tell the MP again, that's probably all I'm going to get agin - just a comment about how they are going through the process and it will be dealt with in time.

 

Lady dealing with my case said it was the GPs fault that it was being delayed now as he was not available to take a call. But they've said they want a formal reply, so a phone call wouldn't have been OK anyway would it?

 

I really wish I had the confidence to get the papers involved, but I'm REALLY scared that it will just make things more difficult than it already is.

 

I asked Social Services to help, but because I wasn't a client with them, they have told me I have to go through a full referral before thy will write a letter for me, even though they agree in principle that I do need a second bedroom.

 

This is ridiculous! But I'm scared to rock the boat which I know is the situation they want me to be in.

 

I know some of you now think that I should go to the paper and have no sympathy because I'm scared to, but I just wanted to update you all on where things currently are.

 

Thakns for all the support.

[the_shadow]

Hi thekat1979,

 

I dont think anyone thinks any worse of you because of your reluctance to go to the press its a personal decision.

 

I would hope that you have this statement in writing though "The council have said that the guide dog is a lifestyle choice" just in case you do in the future after getting nowhere with the council decide to contact someone as that is an obscene comment.

 

Best of luck and I hope something gets sorted for you shortly.

 

S.

[thekat1979]

Sadly it was in a phone conversation. Always is lol - I don't think even they would be willing to put something like that in print.

[cymruambyth]

Hi, I'm sorry to hear it is still not sorted. No-one thinks any less of you for not contacting the press, we all just feel frustrated for you and are trying to think of ways to get everything sorted out.

Next time you speak to them on the phone, could you record the call on you mobile phone?

Best wishes C

[sosumi]

Hi TheKat

I promise you that it's not that anyone here has no sympathy - just the reverse in fact. It's very frustrating not to be able to step in and help, that's all We are all thinking of you. xx

[The GodMother]

I wish i could help.

 

AW guide dog is NOT a lifestyle choice. It is to help u be independant and not have contunious care.

 

i was looking on the rnib website and though u might like this link Social Care home page

 

also this page Legal Home

[JonCris]

"Lifestyle choice" being blind is a lifestyle you choose:eek: I think in fact I know I would have hit the bugger:mad:..........Go to the bleeding press & don't forget to quote that remark at every opportunity

 

Find some way anyway of recording telephone conversations, it really ain't that hard particularly if you have access to the internet as you obviously have

[WelshMam2009]

Sorry to hear of the troubles you are experiencing Kat.

 

In my experience, local authorities do not appreciate "interference" from MP's or AM's in respect of "local" matters.

 

If I were you, I would be contacting my local ward councillor and explaining the nonsense that has been going on.

 

Good luck!!

[MrMT]

Although you cannot prove that someone said your guide dog is a "lifestyle choice" I can guarantee you that if you were to make the council's head honcho aware of this, he/she will send tsunamis (urgent memo's about mis-conduct and possibly new checks and measures) across every department for fear of prosecution. I am certain that whoever is responsible for such a dispicable act will be very much hated by his/her colleagues should they find out she caused it.

 

What's more, whoever you get to deal with in the future will be very much minded to be good to you.

 

Secretly recording such conversations will put you in a powerful position - so powerful, I believe they'll do anything and everything they can to pacify you.

[The GodMother]

i will also see if i can find out anything else that may help u