LBWF tells a disabled tenant on a redeveloped estate: we are offering you a new flat, but you’ve got to complete the formalities, and move your stuff over…within four days

Sometimes, LBWF’s behaviour really is beyond the pale.

An example is the letter below.

It was sent to a longstanding tenant, who is disabled, lives on an estate that is being re-developed, and has been waiting to be rehoused since 2018.

On the plus side, the letter is the offer of a new flat.

But on the minus side – and it is a very big minus – the offer comes with some stringent conditions. 

The letter was sent by e-mail on Thursday 24 February 2022 in the late afternoon, states that the new flat’s tenancy will start on Monday 28 February 2022, and cautions that ‘unless you fail to view and accept the property within 3 working days (from the date of this letter) we will assume that you are refusing the accommodation and will immediately offer the property to another applicant’.

The tenant is thus being told most of the way through a Thursday that they need to arrange a viewing immediately, and if they then want to accept the offer, and avoid paying rent on two tenancies (their existing one, and the new one), they need to move all their worldly possessions over by the following Monday.  

The cruelty of imposing such deadlines speaks for itself.

And it’s not even as if LBWF has offered to help with the move – it hasn’t.

Related Posts

The Housing Ombudsman Service berates LBWF for its error-strewn response to a resident’s routine request for information

LBWF ‘communication’ with local residents: the yawning gap between rhetoric and reality

LBWF and customer service: ‘I wouldn’t even give this council 1 star’ UPDATED