Evicting a family member

[sketcho]

My friend rents his property to his cousin, who does pay rent , well claims housin benefit. There is No tenancy agreement and never has been. my friend needs her out of the property as due to unforseen circumstances he needs to live there himself. But his cousin is refusing to move out,, he has given her 8 weeks written notice. She will only move out if the council give her a house but as u know its not as easy as that and the council dont have many houses to give. My friend will be homeless if he dont get his property back, he even offered his cousin £700 for a bond for a new house but she is still refusing to move,, what else can he do to get her out ??

[jb190281]

hi sketcho. as your friend has given the 2 months notice, and the tenant is refusing to leave, he would then need to apply to the courts for a possession order. This is likely to take another month or so, and in the meantime, the tenant are not required to leave at this point. What if your tenants refuse to leave even after the order is served? Under no circumstances are you, the landlord, allowed to remove the tenants. This can only be done by the court bailiff. You will have to apply again to the court. It may take two more weeks before the tenants are actually removed.
from your friends point of view, your local authority can advise him in his role as landlord (they should have something along the lines of a Private sector liaison officer), but i would also suggest to the tenant that she seeks assistance from the homeless dept asap.
i think ive waffled a bit, but hope it helps!

[brenda]

It sounds as tho your friend will have to go through the process sketcho has outlined above.Hard I know for him but that is how things work out sometimes.At least he has had the benefit of getting a regular rent which often doesn't happen.He will learn from this should he rent a property again always have a tenancy agreement, it makes things slightly easier.Good luck to him.

[AlBags]

Unless he was to make the place temporarily inhabitable .. maybe : )
It's his property .. would/could she really take him to court with no tenancy agreement in place, for cutting off electricity/gas/water EXternally without entry?
Post some extra inhabitants through letterbox? : )

[bushbaby_de]

I didn't think you could get housing benefit without a tenancy agreement? or that you could get it if you rented off a family member?