I have a client who was stopped from going within 500 yards of property because of bail conditions. She was placed in temporary accommodation B&B and then given a temporary tenancy in a house.

She attempted to hand her keys back into her housing office for the house she was not allowed to go near but was told if she did this she would be intentionally homeless and the council would have not duty to re-house.

She was given a secure tenancy at her temporary accommodation. But she then received a letter to say that she owed money on her previous property as she was not entitled to Housing Benefit a period of about 4 months.

Client was paid housing benefit on all temporary accommodation. She is a single parent with 7 children and is on Income Support.

Does anyone have any useful information or case law I can use to help client with appeal.

Thanks

Have a go at the link below to another thread on rightsnet which kind of deals with your situation, with a link to some case law)...

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=460&mode=full

With regard to a finding of intentional homelessness if gives up the keys then see the following from the Shelter website on intentional homelessness: -

"Accommodation you could otherwise have stayed in
The accommodation you left must have been available for you to continue to live in. This means it must have been available for you as well as:
· anyone who normally lives with you as a member of your family and
· any other person who would normally live with you as a member of your family but can't at present because of your housing situation".

As the conditions of her bail meant that she could not continue to live in the home then cannot it be argued that it was not available to her and thus the council’s ‘advice’ was wrong?

If the reason for that particular bail condition (which entailed that the accommodation was no longer available for her to live in) could ground a finding of intentional homelessness, i.e. threatening behaviour of a neighbour within the immediate locality, then that might be a different matter. The council needs to be accurate in the reasons for its decisions.

If both tenancies are LA tenancies and the LA have granted her a second tenancy without bringing the first tenancy to an end, and, refusing to let her bring it to an end because of threats of a finding of intentional homelessness (allowing rent arrears to accrue because of no access to HB), then this may amount to an abuse of public office. I would try to seek specialist advice on this one.

Could you provide more specific info’ particularly as to the exact type of tenancy she has now, i.e. is it a LA tenancy?

Regards
Paul

Paul
Thanks for the info.
The client had a LA tenancy and her new tenancy is a LA one also. When she moved into her new tenancy it was under a temporary licence. She was she was barred from going back to her original tenancy because of violence towards neighbours.

thanks
Greg