Church and State blog: Peabody Trust: The appalling terms of tenancy on offer. Declan will seek from the Housing Ombudsman a declaration of incompatibility pursuant to the Human Rights Act 1998 (WITH UPDATE 26/01/21)

Sunday, May 03, 2020

Peabody Trust: The appalling terms of tenancy on offer. Declan will seek from the Housing Ombudsman a declaration of incompatibility pursuant to the Human Rights Act 1998 (WITH UPDATE 26/01/21)

Declan and I live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) designated property. On 17 April our landlord, Peabody Trust housing association, confronted us with an abominable choice: sign the appalling fixed-term tenancy offered as a renewal or live under the threat to life of a 'no fault' Section 21 eviction notice during a weekly periodic tenancy commencing on 17 May. They strenuously maintain that "the terms are the same and a like for like as requested". And they have falsely accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement in an apparent set-up for a Section 21 eviction.

There are in fact substantial and/or adverse variations to the terms in violation of our rights under the Human Rights Act 1998. For example, the stipulated time in arrears for possession has been reduced from 8 weeks to 14 days. This in itself renders unsignable the tenancy on offer, thereby destabilising our tenancy and inhibiting our ability to exercise our rights. Newham Council has already twice suspended our Housing Benefit because of erroneous notifications from the Department for Work and Pensions that we had vacated. Neither Declan nor I have had any contact with the Department during this tenancy due to the both of us being part-time employed.

In another example, our existing tenancy specifies one month's notice or four weeks' rent when we want to end the tenancy. The tenancy on offer states that if we do not give Peabody one month's notice before we want to move out, or they do not explicitly accept a surrender of our tenancy in writing after we have given them a month's notice, we will remain liable for rent and service charges until the end of the fixed term. This could force any RSI tenant into declaring bankruptcy in any number of scenarios. We could for instance be held liable for damage done to worn-out carpets by the previous tenant(s) and more besides.

Our legal position in respect to 'no fault' Section 21 notice will pose a direct threat to Declan's life. He is a 59-year-old asthmatic with a long history of serious respiratory illness, thus placing him in the high-risk group for COVID-19 and other viral respiratory infections.

Our existing tenancy specifies the weekly rent we must pay:

20 November: I had to upload this first image titled "The charges you must pay" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

The tenancy on offer refers to the monthly rent we must pay:

20 November: I had to upload this second image titled "The charges you must pay" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

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Our existing tenancy states that it is a "renewed" tenancy:

7 August: I had to upload this first image titled "The date your tenancy starts" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

The tenancy on offer does not state it is a renewed tenancy:

8 November: I had to upload this second image titled "The date your tenancy starts" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

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Our existing tenancy does not specify the aims of the project:

The tenancy on offer specifies "visiting support":

20 November: I had to upload this second image titled "Aims of the project" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

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Our existing tenancy is specific on time and amount of rent increase:

20 November: I had to upload this first image titled "Changes in rent" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

The tenancy on offer makes no mention of the rent cap for social housing and is not specific on time or amount of rent increase:

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Our existing tenancy specifies one month's notice or four weeks' rent when we want to end the tenancy:

The tenancy on offer states that if we do not give Peabody one month's notice before we want to move out, or they do not explicitly accept a surrender of our tenancy in writing after we have given them a month's notice, we will remain liable for rent and service charges until the end of the fixed term:

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Our existing tenancy stipulates 8 weeks in arrears for possession:

20 November: I had to upload this first image titled "Ground for possession" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

The tenancy on offer stipulates 14 days in arrears for possession:

17 May: I had to upload this second image titled "Re-entry by the landlord" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

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Our existing tenancy does not specify the services provided:

20 November: I had to upload this first image titled "Schedule 2 - Services provided" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

The tenancy on offer specifies "visiting support for a two-year period":

20 November: I had to upload this second image titled "Schedule 2 - Services provided" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

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Our existing tenancy does not specify any special terms but includes move-on options through St Mungo's:

20 November: I had to upload this first image titled "Schedule 4 - Special terms" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

The tenancy on offer specifies "No move-on options available through Peabody":

20 November: I had to upload this second image titled "Schedule 4 - Special terms" to an alternative host for images. It is another one of my images in MediaFire that does not appear on their site.

UPDATE 26 January 2021

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

30 June 2020: District Judge Ruth Fine orders Declan to pay £1,850 in costs. St Mungo's are under no obligation to even vouch over the phone that we are clients of the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's TST programme (WITH UPDATE 26/01/21)

"Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out." Edd Doerr (1930-2020), (then) President, Americans for Religious Liberty

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

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[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Sunday, May 03, 2020

Peabody Trust: The appalling terms of tenancy on offer. Declan will seek from the Housing Ombudsman a declaration of incompatibility pursuant to the Human Rights Act 1998 (WITH UPDATE 26/01/21)

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