England - Council backing me into a corner with rent on a property that wasn’t my home.
Location: Cheltenham/Sunderland
UPDATE!!!
A form has been emailed to me to end the tenancy and no attendance in person is necessary. Thank you for all your advice! I wasn’t expecting it to be resolved so quickly and easily.
My aunt lived in Sunderland in the north-east. I’ve tried citizens advice and they are proving very unhelpful.
My aunt passed away and it turns out unbeknownst to me that she had made me executor of her will. Her wishes are that I’m in charge of closing all her accounts, arranging her funeral and making sure everything happens the way she wants and sorting out details of moving her stuff out of her council rented property in Sunderland.
I live 220 miles away from where she lived, I have been up to sort some things out but thankfully I have enlisted the help of family members up there to deal with her council property to get it emptied, etc. I’m also recovering from a hysterectomy so travelling on trains and doing any heavy lifting is not ideal for my physical wellbeing at this time.
The problem I have is that the council up there are insisting that I have to be the one to hand the keys back, no one else can do it.
This means I either have to pay for a train to go up just to hand keys back (that my uncle is holding on to) and come back home again at a cost of around £80 per ticket and a 4.5 hour journey time each way, or it has to wait until I go up at the end of this month, which has been planned for months anyway as a family visiting trip. If it has to wait until the end of this month they are going to charge rent which I can understand however when there is someone there that can hand the keys back now I feel like this is unfair. Can anyone offer me any advice?