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Court quashes Peabody eviction of vulnerable tenant

A housing association’s attempt to evict a 58-year-old disabled man has been quashed after a judge ruled it did not follow its own policies for dealing with vulnerable tenants.

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The tenant was evicted from the home he had shared with his late father since 1981

Peabody enlisted bailiffs to remove the tenant, S, from his Battersea home after a possession hearing in June last year, but the eviction was overturned on appeal last month.

S had lived at the address for 33 years and had built up substantial arrears after losing his job, struggling to fill out housing benefit forms and being impacted by the bedroom tax.

He stopped paying rent in January last year when his brother, who helped him fill out benefit applications, moved out. After he failed to engage with Peabody’s benefits staff, the 27,000-home landlord issued possession proceedings.

He was evicted from the home he had shared with his late father since 1981 and forced to ‘throw himself on the mercy’ of his ‘long suffering’ sister, Wandsworth County Court heard.

But, following the former factory worker’s eviction, solicitors acting for him challenged the possession order, citing a psychiatrist’s report, which found he ‘lacked capacity’.

‘[S] is a man who has been disabled from birth by bilateral deafness, a cleft lip repair and mild learning disabilities,’ the report said.

‘With the deterioration in his ability to work due to stress and bereavement following the death of three close family members, he has not worked for the last two years and because of the reading and writing learning disability he has not been able to manage or access benefits.’

Despite this, ‘the only reaction’ of Peabody was to reissue its referral form to the welfare benefits team, district judge Tim Swan said.   

‘A combination of events came together that caused [S] to lose his ability to cope and to cope with his rent account in particular,’ he said, overturning the possession order.

‘It should have been clear … that something far more was needed than a simple repeat of the reference to welfare benefits team.’

The judge said Peabody ‘did not follow or operate’ its policy that vulnerable tenants should be referred family support teams and agree a support plan, and said that failure was ‘unreasonable’.

Haroon Sarwar, a lawyer at TV Edwards, which acted for S, said: ‘This was a difficult case in that the arrears were high and the client had already been evicted from the property and it appeared to be the end of the road for him.

‘The court endorsed the commonly held view amongst social housing lawyers that when registered social landlords have processes and policies in place to assist vulnerable tenants, they should also act like responsible social landlords.’

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