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Clare, an adviser at Housing Rights, recently assisted a young man who was at risk of being made homeless after his mother died. Paul had moved back into his family home with his mother six years ago, but when his mum died he was told by his mother’s housing association that he would have to leave the property as he had no legal right to remain there.
Laura, an adviser at Housing Rights, recently helped a vulnerable client to stay in her home. The client, Mary, was an introductory tenant facing possession due to rent arrears. Laura explains how she helped Mary to stay in her tenancy and to secure a Housing Benefit backdate to offset the arrears.
Susan is a housing association tenant who came to us through NIACRO floating support. Susan lives in supported accommodation due to extensive disability needs.
For many years, Housing Rights has provided housing advice to people entering and leaving custody in Northern Ireland’s three prisons. The housing advice in prisons project is funded by NIHE and the Northern Ireland Prison Service and is an essential way of preventing homelessness on release and sustaining tenancies for these vulnerable members of society.
Ursula Toner reviews a selection of recent cases, where Housing Rights successfully challenged decisions disadvantaging people who had to leave their homes temporarily. Anyone who is going to be temporarily absent from their home should inform their landlord of this absence, in order to best protect their tenancy rights.
An adviser based at Hydebank Wood College and Women’s Prison, discusses one of her recent cases, where she worked in partnership with the Beyond the Gate team at Housing Rights not just to secure a tenancy for a newly-released client, but also to ensure that the individual had the right support in place to cope independently in the community.
Our Community Housing Advice Partnership provides expert housing support to advisers working throughout Northern Ireland. A recent case highlights how working in partnership with a housing specialist can help member agencies achieve the best outcome for clients.
The dedicated advisers on our housing helpline answer calls from the public from 09:30 until 14:30 Monday to Friday. Recently, they’ve had quite a few calls from tenants who’ve been asked by a landlord to vacate their homes in a matter of days. We’ve also spoken with a few people who have been evicted illegally and thought now might be a good opportunity to review the procedures that landlords must follow in order to regain possession of a property from a private tenant.
Our adviser Severina recently helped a client claim a huge overpayment of rent back from an estate agent. The client, Lesley, had overpaid her rent account by a sizeable amount during the three years she had lived in her private tenancy. It can be difficult to reconcile the amount of rent owed with the amount of money paid towards rent. For this reason, it’s vitally important that tenants keep accurate accounts of all payments they make and get and keep receipts for any cash payments made
Stephen’s client, Esther, is a Housing Executive tenant who had previously fallen into rent arrears. Esther said she’d been too embarrassed to talk to someone when she first fell into arrears and hadn’t gone to court when the Housing Executive had applied for a possession order. In her absence, the judge granted a Possession Order with a stay. This meant that Esther could continue to live in her home as long as she kept to the terms of the order, which were made by the judge in court. Thi
