Section: Housing & Estate Management
House Allocated in Unfit Condition
Nottingham City Council allocated an unfit and filthy house to a young homeless single mother with a six-year-old daughter, and warned her she would not receive any other offers of accommodation if she refused it. Miss L accepted the offer on the understanding she would not be made any further offers of accommodation.
The Council then:
- failed to repaint and clean the house before the tenancy started;
- left Miss L to clean the house, and then three months later, when Miss L had done a lot of work, accepted the property was not fit to live in;
- fitted a replacement kitchen on to smoke-blackened walls and without leaving space for a washing machine; and
- failed to clear the severely neglected garden before the tenancy started, and then threatened Miss L with action because of the garden's poor condition.
A councillor who visited the property said it was "stomach turning," with human faeces on the walls, skirting boards and floors, and urine-soaked floorboards. In her report, Local Government Ombudsman Anne Seex says:
"I am appalled that any applicant for housing... should be invited to view a house in the dreadful condition in which this house clearly was."
The ombudsman recommended the Council pay £2,450 compensation to the complainant, conduct necessary works to the house, review its approach to homelessness applicants - in order to avoid intimidating applicants - and improve its record keeping.
When the Council eventually agreed to do the necessary work, a contractor estimated the cost at over £11,500.
Miss L was emotionally affected by having to accept and then clean the property without any adequate help from the Council. She paid rent for three months during which the house was not fit to live in. Her family and friends could not visit her and those who saw the house in its filthy condition will not visit her now. She suffered further stress and anxiety when the Council threatened to take action against her because of the condition of the garden.
The Ombudsman found fault by Nottingham City Council for:
- its failure to bring the property and garden up to an acceptable condition;
- the pressure it placed on a homeless person to accept a property that was not fit to live in;
- inadequate record keeping; and
- its failure to respond to Miss L's reasonable requests and representations.
Miss L was absent from work due to illness and lost her job, with the result that she has financial problems including rent arrears. The Ombudsman did not find that this resulted from the way the Council allocated the property and its failures to make it fit to live in.
Local Government Ombudsman Report 05/C/02965
Case Law Update
Assured joint tenants received notices increasing their rent from the first Monday in April. Their tenancy agreement defined the rent variation date as the first Monday in June.
The House of Lords decided that on a true construction of poorly drafted tenancy conditions, the parties had agreed on an annual increase that could be on any date in the 12 months following the first Monday in June. Accordingly the notice was valid.
The House of Lords rejected the landlord's case that time was not "of the essence" in relation to a rent review date.
Riverside Housing Association v White [2007] UKHL 20, 25 April 2007
© Copyright 1996 - 2008 UK Housing Ltd. Housing Monthly Diary
Issue: May 2007 Reporting on March-April 2007
- Homelessness & Asylum Seekers
- Housing & Estate Management
- Housing Benefit & Council Tax
- Leaseholders' Rights
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