I'm not allowed to post in legal advice groups for the UK, so I'm posting this here instead.
I’m writing this because I need advice, as well as to warn other people not to believe the following lies from Council staff.
First of all, I must point out that I don’t want advice from Thatcherite or Blairite neoliberals who think that I can solve all my problems by just deciding to go and get a job! This is because employers, NOT workers decide whether workers can work or not. Their decision is no. Due to this, I have no option of employment. I’m officially unfit for work and on Universal Credit. I can only do genuinely self employed work where I don’t work for anyone else, not “self employed” working for a company. I've done some of this in the past. I’m studying a course at the moment, which claims I can make enough money to stop me worrying about money and afford anything I need, as well as almost anything I want. Even if I can make a fraction of the money the course says is possible, all my problems will be solved, but this hasn’t happened yet, although I'm making progress. I can't be sure it will ever happen.
I had to leave my last flat in 2025 after four years eight months, due to serious damp and mould (see pic attached) which I eventually found out was caused by leaky plastic pipes embedded in the walls. This happened after my Landlord converted a flat into two smaller flats before I moved in there. I measured the humidity as 82% by default, meaning without me opening the windows or running the radiators. The flat looked OK when I first viewed it, although there was an oval shaped damp patch on one wall running from the top to bottom of one wall. I hoped it would go away, and that I'd have to put up with it to get a 20 square metre flat. The other flat I viewed that same day was only 12 square metres.
Four years and four months after moving in, my landlord wanted the building valued, but this required the mould to be cleaned up first. They had previously got a team of three industrial cleaners to do this work. They took about twelve hours over a period of two days. However, this time they weren’t prepared to organise or pay for the right type of cleaners to do the job. The single domestic cleaner they sent took one look just inside the door, then walked out without doing any work and phoned my Landlord’s Office. After this, the Landlord’s Agent said the state of the flat was my fault and threatened to evict me!
I didn’t think I had any chance of getting another flat in 2025, due to the system at that time created by landlords being officially unfit for work and on Universal Credit. I was eagerly awaiting The Renters’ Rights Act to become law, but this was delayed a lot. I followed advice online to protect myself against a Section 21 Notice by complaining to the Council about the damp and mould. I was given an S21 Notice (i.e. revenge eviction) after being protected from it. My neighbour got one before me for no known reason. Her flat wasn’t anything like as damp and mouldy. I think this was because the leaky pipes were shielded by bathroom tiles on her side of our communal wall.
My flat had a Prohibition Order put on it by a Council Inspector. He could have issued an Improvement Notice instead, but decided not to. The Order meant that my Landlord wasn’t allowed to charge any more Rent before they’d had the damp and mould fixed, and I wasn’t allowed to carry on living there either, but I wouldn’t be forced to leave. I had to leave before any work was done, though. An Improvement Notice would have meant being temporarily rehoused by my Landlord, then moved back in after the work was completed. After this, the Landlord could still have evicted me, though.
At first, the Inspector was talking about getting me into Sheltered Housing, even though I was younger than the minimum age required and had lived in their area for less than five years. Unfortunately, their online application system automatically closed my application down based on me being too young and not having lived locally for five years.
After this, another Council Department started talking about me going into “Temporary Accommodation”. I immediately said “I don’t ACCEPT ‘Temporary Accommodation’ because it’s not TEMPORARY!” I repeated this several times and told them about how long I’d been in “Temporary Accommodation” before. This was four years and four months! Later on, one of them told me that their Manager had said it would only be for a maximum of 56 days (i.e. 8 weeks). They sent me a PDF guaranteeing this. They said that after the temporary accommodation, they’d get me “something more permanent”. I moved into a Bed & Breakfast provided and paid for by the Council. When I moved out into the temporary accommodation and moved some of my belongings into free Council storage, I lost any chance of moving back into that flat.
Unfortunately, I later heard from the other residents that they’d been living in the B&B for over a year! They said they’d also been told it was only for 56 days max. This meant they’d been lied to! As for me, the 56 days expired without anyone from the Council even contacting me to tell me what was happening!!
After five months without any contact, I contacted the Council again, which meant going through their complicated system. I phoned them to find out why the B&B was suddenly displaying VACANCIES signs although it was supposed to be only for Council tenants.
The Council didn’t explain what was happening with the B&B, but I saw my second Caseworker for the first time. This Caseworker was assigned to me after it was decided I had to leave the flat. The Caseworker before that was the one who sent the PDF lying to me that I would only be in B&B for 56 days. They turned against me for drinking more alcohol than Mrs Thatcher’s government said I should drink. They started saying nasty things about their plans for me. They used the phrase “I’m not happy”, or “I wouldn’t be happy” about the idea of getting me a new flat! Whenever I’ve heard the phrase “I’m not happy” or “I wouldn’t be happy” before it was connected either with supporting employment discrimination against me or me being on a slave labour scheme, so this proves to me how evil and controlling this is, or an infringement of my human rights. They also told me I had lost the 300 points I had been awarded to bid on Council Housing by moving into B&B! They told me I then had only 50 points. They said they want to make me live in some kind of hostel which is called “Supported Housing”! They told me that each floor was separate, there’s a shared kitchen, I’d have my own keys and could come and go as I pleased, but there would be Support Workers there, and no visitors would be allowed! I said this was unacceptable.
My Caseworker gave me a few tasks to perform, before they could agree to get me a new flat. I carried out all these tasks, as well as providing a Witness Statement from a friend who had visited me loads of times in my last flat where he saw me do lots of things that prove I can live independently on my own, so I shouldn’t be in “Supported Housing”. These things included cooking various meals, cleaning, paying for my electricity credit, using computers and trying to cope with the damp and mould.
Next, after the B&B gave letters to all residents that they must leave, someone else from the Council told me I must move to another B&B. It wasn’t all that near the first B&B, which took me a lot of effort and money in fares to move all my belongings there over a period of about two weeks. I was also told when I arrived that they have a strict no visitors policy!
After completing the tasks my Caseworker gave me, I didn’t hear from my them, so after some time trying to find out the full name and email address of a certain person I’d been told could help me, I sent emails to this person, who was their Manager, demanding that they assign me a new Caseworker. The Manager ignored these emails, though!!
I phoned the Council in mid April 2026 to see if I could talk to someone apart from my totally useless Caseworker, but then this same Caseworker phoned me and said the same crap as before, including “You won’t be referred to the Private Sector”. After that, I told them that I’m not dealing with them any more and hung up.
I sent an email to this useless Caseworker demanding that they pass the case back to whoever they got it from, or to their Manager, or to another Caseworker who agrees to get me a new flat. I said that unless they did this, I’d be starting a campaign to have them sacked on 18-04-2025. This campaign has been delayed because of wondering who to contact. I could only email to Council staff who I’ve dealt with before.
I haven’t managed to register for Council Housing yet because I have to scan various documents. However, I’ve also been told by other residents that my chances of getting it seem to be very low. I think I may qualify as Priority Need because I have no surviving relatives who I’ve ever met, but I’m not sure if this would qualify me.
I’ve been living in B&Bs for nearly thirteen months now! What can I do now to get a new flat? How does the Renters’ Rights Act help me to get one? Surely the Council can’t get away with lying to me to persuade me to leave my home. So far I haven’t been able to find a Legal Aid Solicitor to help me against the Council, so I’m considering representing myself.