I fought the council and WON after they kicked me out of my flat and forced me to move 200 miles away

A MUM has won her bitter legal battle against a callous council after a court ruled they wrongly moved her almost 200 miles away after evicting her from her home.

Lisa Paley, 40, was kicked out of her home in Waltham Forest, North East London, in January 2020 after her landlord decided to sell the property.

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The first applied to Waltham Forest Council as homeless in 2016 after she and her family were evicted from the home they had lived in for eight years.

The family were then placed in temporary accommodation in Bexley, but fell into arrears after the Discretionary Housing Payments she was receiving were stopped in 2019.

Waltham Forest Council then told her that they would be moving her to a different property, for a private tenancy, and gave her just four days to leave the property after four years there.

Mum-of-four Lisa was moved with her three children to Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs, which is 185 miles from her home in North East London.

The council ruled that the family would have a “surplus” of £10.70 a week, but the affordability assessment did not take public transport, utilities or groceries into account.

Lisa was told by the council that if she refused to go to the new accommodation then she would be “making herself homeless.”

Lisa and her three daughters, Nicole, 15, Sophie, 14, and Tia, 7, all struggled to adjust to their new home and felt “isolated”.

Speaking to the Sun Lisa said: “I pleaded with them and begged them to move me anywhere else. I don’t know anyone in Stoke, my family are all in London, I have lived in Waltham Forest my whole life.

“I was just told that I had no choice, I had to go or I would be making myself and my family homeless.

“I had no choice but to go to a solicitor to fight the case, but it turned out that Waltham Forest messed up my application, on a form I never filled out.

“The whole thing has affected me and my children a lot. They didn’t go to school initially as we moved in lockdown.

“They were depressed, I was depressed, the kids are paying the price with their education and it has been a complete nightmare.

“The council said that the property had been checked but it wasn’t, there were so many mold issues and it just made the problem worse.”

Lisa had to borrow money from her brother to secure a deposit for a property in Tilbury, Essex, in an attempt to move the family of five closer to home.

‘NIGHTMARE’

She launched the legal appeal after hiring a solicitor, and after the court initially rejected her claims, an appeal was found in her favour.

The judgement means the council cannot find that Lisa’s decision to leave the Stoke property has resulted in her becoming intentionally homeless.

She added: “Honestly even now I don’t feel myself. It’s a nightmare, they have caused all this stress for us and it still hasn’t been fixed.

“They are meant to rehome me in the borough but nothing has happened. My kids didn’t see their dad for months because of this.

“They expected me to be able to get a £170 train to go back to London with all my kids, which is just awful.

“I have had no support from them at all, it was horrible. I still don’t really feel myself. I was crying every day up there. I just felt lost.

“I am happy that they have made that decision, but I still just want to be close to home and my family in the place that I have always lived.

“My kids were struggling, even now one of them is playing up at school because they want to go home to their friends and family.

“It was just so hard to settle, it was bad enough during lockdown for most people, but we were completely isolated from everyone in a strange area. It was awful.”

The court ruling found that the council failed to include an allowance for Lisa’s debt to be repaid, and instead allowed for £50 per week to be spent on “other” – such as clothing and school requirements.

According to the judgement, the council’s lawyer argued in court that it was “unreasonable” for Lisa to have transport costs included in her budget “given that one of the schools which was able to offer a place to one of the children was within half an hour’s walk from the property”.

I still don’t really feel myself. I was crying every day up there. I just felt lost.

Lisa Paley

The judge said: “How else is Ms Paley to get the shopping for a family of five home from one of the cheaper supermarkets other than by public transport or taxi?”

He added that Waltham Forest Council “failed to prepare a budget by reference to the needs of this particular applicant”.

“Far from there being sufficient flexibility in the budget to allow, for example, routine but frugal use of public transport and the occasional visit to her family, the affordability budget provided by the local authority was inevitably going to plunge Ms Paley even further into debt and as a consequence put her and her children at risk of once again being rendered homeless.”

Cllr Louise Mitchell, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness Prevention at Waltham Forest Council said: “It’s a national scandal that benefits and wages don’t cover the cost of rent in London.

“We call on the government to look at this ruling as further evidence of the need for change.

“When we help families at risk of being made homeless, we cannot place them where they can’t afford to pay their rent and buy day-to-day essentials.

“We are proud of our housing record. The borough is undergoing the largest programme of homebuilding in a generation.

“We are doing everything we can to get as many new homes built at a rent people can afford. We call upon the Government to do more to tackle this crisis that affects millions up and down the country.”

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