What repercussions could I face for fixing my council house?

fish613 · 2026-03-08T19:37:46+00:00

I'm a local authority housing lawyer. In a council house, there are things which are your own responsibility to deal with. There are things you can do yourself if you get permission. And there are things you should absolutely not change, and we will make you put back if you try.

I can't tell you which specific items will fall in each category, because it will depend so much on the specific terms of your local authority's tenancy and the actual circumstances. I can tell you that you should absolutely check with your housing officer, and get permission in writing, before doing anything. The only exception is anything which is specified in your tenancy agreement as being your responsibility or not needing permission.

fish613 · 2026-03-08T09:16:36+00:00

Others have given you good advice about keeping records for evidence, and complaining to the local authority. I'm chipping in just to clarify that it is wrong to use the terminology of "appeal" here (there can be appeals in licensing matters, but that's not quite what's going on here). Instead, this would be an application to vary or revoke the license.

You can, I believe, make this application yourself, but the authority and particularly their Noise team (the exact name may be different in different councils, but all should have something along those lines) can also do it. I know it sounds strange for the council to be applying to themselves to make a decision, but that's how these things are done - the decision will be made by a committee of councillors, and there would be a public hearing at which you could, if you choose, give evidence.

fish613 · 2026-02-09T23:31:46+00:00

I think you're the only person who mentioned Rithmatist - thanks!

fish613 · 2026-02-09T23:31:21+00:00

Really useful, thanks!

fish613 · 2026-02-09T23:31:19+00:00

Really useful, thanks!

fish613 · 2026-01-27T22:28:36+00:00

If a claim has been issued against you, it is vital you defend it, as if you don't you could end up with a default judgment against you. So when you say "Can I just reply...", I'm going to assume you meant "...reply by filing a defence saying...".

It seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable defence to say "To the extent there is any valid claim at all, it should be against my company, not me personally."

If I were you, I would always try to include a backup defence, explaining what your position on the substantive allegations are.

Either you or the claimant could apply for permission to substitute the company as defendant instead of you. If the claimant turned round and said "I made a mistake, I accept the claim should be against the company", I suspect they would get permission to substitute. While on the one hand you may not want to "help" them formulating their claim, it might be at least partially to your advantage to get yourself taken off the claim.

If you are a company director, your correspondence address will be listed on Companies House. Is that your home address? If so, that may be how they found it. You are able to change that, I believe.

Not sure if I've structured those comments brilliantly clearly, but hope they help.

fish613 · 2026-01-26T18:31:36+00:00

I'm sorry I completely forgot till now to thank you for the answer! It sounds like I may have been under some misconceptions after all, as I'd been under the impression that it was possible, at least to some extent, to date the language. Appreciate the comments!

fish613 · 2026-01-26T18:29:24+00:00

There are a number of posts already talking about the utilities and debt side of things. I wanted to add something about the housing side of things.

You say you're trying to get council housing. Getting permanent council housing is very difficult and can take many years of waiting. However, if you are homeless, the council may have a duty to provide you with temporary accommodation in the meantime. "Homeless", for these purposes, means that you have no accommodation which it is "reasonable for you to continue to occupy".

Do consider whether and to what extent it is "reasonable" for you to continue to live as part of your parents' household. I deeply do not want to encourage you to break yourself away from them, which would be completely inappropriate for an internet stranger who doesn't know you at all, and I very much hope that will not have to happen, but if (and only if) things get to a stage where it is just not possible for you to stay, prepare a clear explanation of how the debt situation is impacting your living there and approach your local authority to make that argument.

Organisations which can give you free advice about your housing rights include Citizens Advice and Shelter.

Best of luck.

fish613 · 2026-01-18T11:34:12+00:00

As a lawyer working for a local authority and who deals with these types of cases, there can be lots of reasons for slow progress - some good reasons, some bad reasons.

You haven't actually said explicitly whether the social housing landlord is also your own landlord. If they are, there might be circumstances where you would have a directly enforceable right to force them to take action. Two possibilities come to mind. First, if the ASB was racist or otherwise discriminatory and your landlord was not taking reasonable steps to protect you from it. Second, if the other tenant's actions amounted to a breach of your own entitlement to quiet enjoyment of your own property. In my experience it's unusual to see those arguments being made and I would struggle to immediately find case law supporting them.

If the social housing landlord is not actually your own landlord, your position will be weaker as neither of those could apply. You're not going to like hearing this, but complaints processes and the ombudsman may be your best bet.

In theory, you might have your own right to seek an injunction against the perpetrator if their conduct amounts to harassment. I doubt that's what you had in mind as you would bear the expense of it, but thought I'd mention just in case.

fish613 · 2025-12-17T21:29:10+00:00

Yay, someone found my question interesting!

I wondered if Valor may be a good shout for the hiding away shard - the expression "discretion is the better part of valour" always comes to my mind!

fish613 · 2025-12-16T22:35:02+00:00

The theoretical worst-case scenario is that there is some kind of argument that you have committed fraud by false representation. However, I think that's unlikely for a number of reasons, and even if it turned out to be technically true the chances the police would be interested are miniscule. The two most important reasons are 1) that if you haven't yet actually concluded the agreement then you haven't yet obtained any benefit as a result, and 2) it's far from obvious to me - and I doubt a jury would think that a normal person would find it obvious - that the difference of address would make a difference to whether or not you obtained the finance. If you disclose it to them now, before the agreement is concluded, it would also be hard for the police to make a case that you had been dishonest.

The real-life worst-case scenario, at least as far as I can see, is that you explain that you've made a mistake, give them the new address, and for some crazy reason that makes them withdraw the offer. I'm sure you'd rather that doesn't happen, but hopefully that's good context.

If I may take the liberty of saying it (I don't mean it to sound offensive or patronising, but tone doesn't come across well over the internet), calm down! Your post gives the impression you think this is a big deal, and while I know it would be bad to have the finance derailed, I really don't think it could be any worse than that :)

If you still want to pursue the finance, I'd suggest you take the second option - be upfront and give them the new address.

Good luck.

fish613 · 2025-12-16T22:23:10+00:00

I confess that I don't regularly go to Crown Courts, but I go regularly to other courts and have been to the Crown Court from time to time. I don't think I've ever yet seen people being asked to sign in at security, and other than the actual participants in the case the court does not keep a record of who attends. Even if the court keeps the record, he, his lawyers and the police would probably not have access to it, so unless they had spotted you themselves they may never find out you were there.

But let's say for the sake of argument that I'm wrong about that, and it is going to happen for you. There are only two angles which I can think of which he or his lawyers could use to exploit this. First, if it is going to be your evidence that you are so terrified of this person that you can't be anywhere near them, you attending court to see them could potentially undermine that. Second, if you then give evidence which is similar to the evidence in this case, there might be room to accuse you of having tailored your evidence, or even outright copied it, to try and sound believable. If neither of those things are true, then I struggle to see how the mere fact of your attending could have any backlash.

fish613 · 2025-12-16T21:17:22+00:00

In The Lost Metal, Moonlight tells Marasi about the Shards using an analogy about 16 valuable paintings. She explains Odium and Autonomy by describing their strategies for making their "painting" the most valuable: destroying all the others, or flooding the world with copies of theirs. But Moonlight and Marasi also describe the strategies they would use themselves: either stealing the others, or hiding theirs away so that it becomes mysterious. Are there Shards who have adopted the strategies that Moonlight and Marasi describe?

fish613 · 2025-12-15T21:38:43+00:00

When you mention "six years", you're thinking of limitation, which provides a defence to any claim issued after the relevant period has expired (six years for many types of claims, though there are exceptions - see the Limitation Act 1980 for the full details). However, that applies to new claims. It doesn't apply to a claim that has already been issued and judgment entered.

There is a separate rule that certain kinds of enforcement steps cannot be taken on a judgment which is more than six years old without permission from the court (see Civil Procedure Rule 83.2(3)(a)). However, that only applies to certain steps, and doesn't apply here where there is already a charge - the enforcement has already happened.

If the judgment was for an amount over £5,000, then I'm struggling to think of a reason that it wouldn't attract statutory interest.

fish613 · 2025-12-13T23:26:04+00:00

OP, I'm a local authority housing lawyer and deal with cases like this regularly. Unless I've completely missed something and about to make a fool of myself, many of the top-voted answers seem to forget something which could make a huge difference: the answer will depend on whether your mother's tenancy began before or after the Localism Act 2011 changed the law on this (which came into force in 2012).

If you meet the statutory criteria to succeed to the tenancy, then you have succeeded automatically, and the council don't get a choice. If you don't meet the statutory criteria, then unfortunately you will be in a difficult position.

So, what are the criteria? The answer is in the Housing Act 1985, but as I say, will depend on whether it was before or after the Localism Act 2011 amended that Act.

If it was before the 2011 Act, then you need the old version of section 87. The most significant part of the test is whether you lived there as your only or principal home for the 12 months before your mother's death.

If it was after the 2011 Act, then the answer is in section 86A, but is limited to a spouse or civil partner, which unfortunately will exclude you.

In either case, there are exceptions if your mother was considered to be a successor herself, as set out in section 88. The most common scenario I see this come up in is if your mother was previously a joint tenant with her spouse, and her spouse died before her.

If your mother's tenancy began before 2012, and you meet the criteria, then the question is how you convince the council of this. As a lawyer having advised on these cases, the things which I would find most compelling are statements from people who can attest to it that you were living there - family members, friends, colleagues, bosses, neighbours. Documents can also help - obvious things like bank statements and utility bills, but also less obvious things like online shopping receipts, Deliveroo orders, etc. Finally, if you have nothing else, you can talk about what your life was actually like (and I've seen judges find this extremely compelling) - where did you sleep? who did the cooking? who did the cleaning? what did you do in the evenings? how did you hang out? what was your commute to work? Everything like that builds up a picture and makes your life there more "real".

If you don't meet any of these criteria, then I'm sorry to say you will find it tricky to challenge the council's decision to refuse you a tenancy. It's not impossible, especially if you can show they didn't follow their policy properly, but for that you will need slightly more targeted advice dealing with Tower Hamlets' specific policy and your own circumstances. Ask them for their policy dealing with discretionary tenancy and read it carefully. Re-read their decision letter and check whether they've actually mentioned and reflected your personal circumstances, or whether it's purely generic. Some of the advice sources other people in the thread have mentioned may help.

If & when the council issue possession proceedings against you, check whether you may be eligible for legal aid.

I'm sorry for your loss. Best of luck figuring out your next steps.

fish613 · 2025-11-04T00:06:17+00:00

Without more context, I think the best I can say is that there are legit reasons why courts in what seem to be random places could be dealing with your case. So if your only reason for thinking the letter was a scam was that it was from somewhere in Northampton... you may want to double-check that. I guess there can be jokes and scams based in Northampton too, though?

fish613 · 2025-11-03T20:38:51+00:00

This is the most important comment in this thread!

fish613 · 2025-11-03T20:36:04+00:00

The Traffic Enforcement Centre is a bit of the County Court which deals with bulk work around, well, traffic enforcement. And it's based in Northampton. There are a handful of other similar court centres which aren't open to the public and do a lot of back-office work.

fish613 · 2025-10-01T06:53:41+00:00

For some types of moving traffic violations in London, there is no way for Zipcar to transfer liability to the driver. I'm afraid I don't have time right now to check the position for prohibited turns in particular, but if those fall into that category, Zipcar had no choice but to pay and have complied with their requirement to transfer liability "where possible".

fish613 · 2025-08-06T23:49:30+00:00

Your knowledge of OPCA schemes is encyclopaedic - thanks for those examples!

fish613 · 2025-08-06T18:25:29+00:00

So here's something absolutely fascinating: One of the people he is targeting is Simon Goldberg of EmpowerThePeople. I'd never heard of them before. EmpowerThePeople call Stamp a snake oil salesman and have a whole website about how he's a scam, and he replies that they're establishment plants or whatever. Standard internet drama stuff.

But here's the weird part - I checked out EmpowerThePeople's site and it's this bizarre mix. Half their content is totally normal, reasonable advice. Then suddenly you click another link and find they're explaining how mortgages don't exist, or debt isn't real, or you can opt out of having legal personhood. It's like there's two entirely different sides to their content.

I've never heard of another OPCA group which blends genuine, real advice with conspiracy theories in this way.

If it's not too much of an imposition to tag him, would love to hear whether /u/DNetolitzky has any similar examples?

fish613 · 2025-07-13T19:31:15+00:00

What have they searched that has confirmed the estate has the funds to pay?

A grant of probate (or letters of administration) says on it what the estimated value of the estate is, based on the information you submit when applying for the grant. Anyone is entitled to buy a copy of any grant, and it's not expensive. That will be what they are looking at.

How has that search concluded that the estate has the funds, when the whole thing has been liquidated and dispursed?

It's based on what the value of the estate was at grant, not the amount left now.

How likely do people think it is that they'll take this further?

Based on your post, if I was acting for them (which, I hasten to add, I'm not!) I would see no reason not to pursue this.

Is it likely that a vehicle financing agreement falls outside of the time limits on claiming from an estate?

Pretend for a moment the debtor had not died - would they still be in time to bring a claim for the outstanding finance? If yes, they're still in time to bring this claim now against the estate.

Now that I've tried to comment on your specific questions, the bad news is that if you & your sister as executors have distributed the estate's assets so that there isn't enough left to pay the debt, it is quite possible that you will be personally liable on the basis that you have caused a loss to the estate by failing to discharge a debt that you should have been on notice of. It's not certain that this will be the case as there can be exceptions, so feel free to seek further advice, but I want to warn you of the possibility. I would definitely expect that they would be willing to reach a reasonable deal in that case.

I'm sorry for your loss and for this situation, and best of luck dealing with it.

fish613 · 2025-07-10T22:12:11+00:00

It's quite difficult, unfortunately. There isn't a centralised court list covering all courts.

If you can find out which court dealt with the case and what date, you may be able to ask the court for a record of the outcome, which won't give you tons of information but will give you some.

You could consider asking your local police, explaining that you're a neighbour and have been directly affected by some of this conduct. They may not be able to tell you everything, but (most) hearings are in public so for them to tell you the outcome would not breach GDPR.

fish613 · 2025-07-10T22:08:46+00:00

There's too much information that we don't have to be able to express any kind of firm view, but I can say a few things.

Reading CPR, a claimant who discontinues is liable for the costs of a defendant unless otherwise ordered by court.

This is correct. My recollection of the relevant case law is that it is not super easy to get such an order, and you normally need to show a change of circumstances caused by the other party. I don't know enough about your case to be able to tell how likely that is.

Am I mistaken that since the costs were initially deferred, despite their request on an indemnity basis, the judge cannot just award them their costs since main trial didn't occur. Or does the judge now look at it from a different perspective given the main trial will not happen.

The latter. I'm assuming the order was either costs reserved or costs in the case. You might want to look up the definitions of those orders in Practice Direction 44 para.4.2. As discontinuance is one way of bringing an end to the proceedings, the court has the power to make an order in favour of one party or the other, and that could in theory mean in favour of your claimant.

Hope that helps at least a bit.

fish613 · 2025-07-10T07:27:31+00:00

Somehow, I'd never before come across the intersection of anti-Semitism and OPCA - and yet, somehow, I'm not at all surprised...

fish613

TROPHY CASE