Terms & Conditions

[peterdelamothe]

Can of worms here! In principle it was a reasonable decision to pay the landlord but there is a right of appeal and this is a discretion. In reality, there is nothing much a Tribunal can do and you might find both parties are desperate to drag the Council into a dispute. Which you should try to avoid.

The rest of your post is more important. How much has been paid to part buy the property? Large amounts….how much? Are the payments of “rent” actually payments of capital? Should the appellant be treated as a part “owner” in some way and thus excluded from HB? I dont know and would need more info on this and would guess that some Tribunals would want to know a lot more from the parties.

The matter of retaining the HB is nothing to do with the Council….the old case of DPP v Huskinson made it clear this is a matter between landlord and tenant.

Why has the tenant not been evicted after 9 months or proceedings not even started? Probably because the situation is very complex. The landlord would normally have issued proceedings under either section 21 or 8 but I suspect the sols have said the agreement to sell the property has made it not so easy. Maybe the agreement excluded eviction?

When she got a Council property did the tenant declare she had part bought a private property I wonder?

I would be dubious to pay more HB to anyone. I am guessing here but there must be a concern that no HB should ever have been paid and that this is a contrivance case dressed up to get HB to buy the property.

Interesting case and I would guess there is a lot more here!