Latest news with #housingissues
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Woman Threatens to Move Out If Husband Allows Sister to Move Into Their 2-Bedroom Apartment
With her husband and their toddler in their two-bedroom apartment, adding another person would be too much for this womanNEED TO KNOW A man told his wife that his sister needed a place to stay, and he suggested she crash in their two-bedroom apartment However, with their toddler sleeping in their second bedroom, the wife said no She told her husband that if his sister moved in, she would move outA woman found herself at odds with her husband after telling him that his sister couldn't stay at their apartment. In a Reddit post, the woman shares that she lives with her husband and their toddler in a small two-bedroom apartment. The second bedroom is reserved for the toddler, and they don't have a guest room or spare mattress. However, her husband's sister recently called and said she needed a place to 'stay for a while.' "No details. Just boom, she's on her way. She's not asking. She's telling us," the woman writes. "Apparently she got into it with her roommate and 'can't deal with the drama.' Her words." The woman told her husband "straight up no," not because she doesn't care about his sibling, but because they simply "don't have the space." 'Our kid wakes up if someone breathes too loudly near his room. I'm already running on fumes from the night feedings and the 4 AM cries. The last thing I need is another adult here adding to the chaos,' the woman shares. Her husband then told her that she was 'being cold," noting that family is family and "it's just temporary" — despite not knowing his sister's long-term plans. "I asked how long is temporary. He shrugs. Says a few weeks, maybe a couple months. No plan. No end date. Just vibes and guilt," she writes. "I tried to be clear. I said, If she moves in, I move out. I didn't mean it as a threat. I just meant I literally won't be able to function in this house if she's here full time," she continues. "I'm already stretched thin. This would break me. He looked at me like I'd just kicked his puppy. Said I was forcing him to choose." She noted that it's actually the other way around, as his sister is the one who put them in such a tough place. Still, "now things are tense" and her husband is "barely talking" to her, all while his sister keeps trying to "guilt-bait" him. 'I feel like the bad guy. Like I'm this evil wife keeping his poor sister out on the streets or something. But also I'm tired of always being the one who bends,' the woman confesses. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Most Redditors came to her defense, applauding her for putting her foot down. 'She hasn't been evicted. Unless she is in actual danger then she doesn't need the help she is asking for. That kind of help is for emergencies not for not being able to handle the drama,' one person wrote, to which the poster replied, 'Thanks. I agree help should go to those truly in crisis. She's stressed, but this isn't an emergency.' Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
The Sun
06-07-2025
- General
- The Sun
Our ‘dangerous' newbuild estate is still unfinished a year later – it's costing us £1000s… but we're constantly ignored
FAMILIES have slammed a 'dangerous' newbuild which has been left unfinished for over a year. Residents have said that they feel ignored over the issue, with one even paying out £3000 because of the project. 3 3 3 Residents in the Hollington Grange Estate in Fegg Hayes, Stoke-on-Trent, have said they are deeply unhappy with developer Keepmoat. They want the developer to sort out the area's pavements, drainage and roads. According to one resident, they have spent £3000 on drainage because of delays to the building project. Bruno Nunes moved to the estate in March 2024 and was aware that the area was unfinished. However, he is angry that work continues to be slow. He said: "We knew the development was not finished. We were aware it was still a building site. We were told the work would be done by the end of summer 2024. But the roads and pavements have still to be finished.' Bruno added: 'When summer ended, about October, people started sending emails asking what was happening. 'We were told it would be done by the end of the year. Then we were told February. We were then told Spring. "We have had to pay the maintenance fees. The lighting is now ok. But the street was dark in the middle of winter. "The houses are sound in my opinion but there have been a lot of issues with the drainage. I just did the work myself. We spent £3,000 to get the garden to a decent standard.' We live in UK's 'worst' seaside town – tourists say it's rundown and crime is a problem but here's why locals love it Don Jose, 40, lives in the area with his wife and two children. He says that he had to finish his own garden and that the local play area is not open. The dad-of-two added: "I want the pavement sorted and the playground opening. "The last email I received from them said they would be finished by the end of February and it has not been done." Keepmoat told StokeonTrentLive that the roads should be finished and opened within weeks and that consultants have been brought in over the 'reported drainage issues'. The spokesperson added that the play area is waiting to be signed off. Peter Barlow, regional managing director at Keepmoat North West, said: "Keepmoat is working closely with residents to address their concerns and has set a timeline for contractors to complete the road improvements within weeks. 'The playpark area has been finished, pending final RoSPA certification and we are consulting with specialists to identify the cause of the reported drainage issues. 'Keepmoat is committed to creating developments that foster thriving communities and we will continue to support residents to ensure the improvements at Hollington Grange meet our high standards." The news comes after residents in Stafford, Birmingham hit out after a residential development began construction near to their homes. According to them, the 'dust and dirt' was vile and the new homes cost an eyewatering £500,000. Stafford Borough Council announced the works in February 2023, but the works have continued for 28 weeks.
CBC
02-07-2025
- General
- CBC
After fighting for repairs for almost 10 years, this Halifax tenant says the system is broken
Karen Crane's top-floor apartment is neatly furnished with a breathtaking view — but her living room looks like a construction site. Crane's couches are covered with drop cloths and the floorboards have been pulled up throughout the living room, revealing the concrete slab. Under her patio door, a swath of drywall has been removed, exposing concrete, metal shards and protruding nails. She says the unit has been in this condition for months, and issues have been recurring for years. "I am an educated person … I'm a woman who has some resilience," Crane, 62, said in an interview. "But I'm broken down a little bit here, you know, I'm fading." Crane, a registered nurse, said shortly after she moved into her apartment on Walter Havill Drive in Halifax's Armdale neighbourhood in the fall of 2015, she began noticing the heat wasn't working and sometimes the floor near the patio door was wet. Then came full-blown flooding that covered the living room floor on multiple occasions. Almost a decade later, the flooding issue hasn't been fixed, she said, despite an order in her favour from the province's residential tenancies program, and an order from a municipal building official for repairs to be completed by the end of April. Crane said she feels the government systems aren't working. "I don't think it's meant to be that way, but there seems to be holes that need to be tightened up," she said. Nowhere to turn Nora MacIntosh, a staff lawyer with Nova Scotia Legal Aid in Halifax, says her office hears from tenants "very regularly" who struggle to get repairs completed in their rentals. "The frustrating part is that a lot of the time the advice that we can give doesn't feel very great, because there aren't very many options that people can access to get repairs completed," MacIntosh told CBC News in an interview. MacIntosh voiced concerns that have been long held by both tenants and landlords that the residential tenancy system lacks enforcement capabilities. Meanwhile, the head of the residential tenancies program insists there is a way to enforce repairs — it just may not be well known. Exhausting all options Crane said over the years, her landlord, Navid Saberi of United Gulf Developments Ltd., sent different people in to assess the flooding and heat issues and try to fix them, but nothing worked for long. She said dealing with family health issues and working through the COVID-19 pandemic as a nurse took all her attention and the years passed by. "My question to anybody who stayed in an apartment that was not being repaired for eight years, six years, 10 years, is why didn't you leave," she said. Crane said she stayed because she loved her apartment, her rent was affordable for her, and she believed the issue would be fixed. Finally in 2024, she turned to the province's residential tenancies program that regulates disputes between tenants and landlords through hearings, then issues decisions called orders of the director. Crane didn't ask for money, just repairs. The tenancy officer ruled in her favour in September 2024. By December 2024, the heat issue was fixed but the flooding wasn't. Crane called Halifax municipal services and a residential building official visited her apartment. He ordered the repairs be completed by April 30, 2025. "He said, 'This is terrible, this is going to be repaired in a month.' I said, 'You sure?'" Crane said. Since the April deadline passed, Crane said she contacted the building official multiple times but he has not returned. She said after CBC News visited her building for an interview and contacted all parties involved, the municipal building official and her landlord's maintenance supervisor both contacted her to address the repairs. Crane said the inspector gave the landlord an extension until August, and Crane has another residential tenancies hearing booked for July 16. Halifax Regional Municipality declined a request from CBC News to interview a representative from the building standards department. "Staff are not able to speak to the specifics of any individual case, but I can tell you that building officials utilize 'notice of violations'," spokesperson Sarah Brannen said in an email. "These notices ensure the owner is fully informed of deficiencies and establish a reasonable timeline to have the work completed." Brannen said the next step is an "order to comply," then if the work still isn't completed by the end of the time frame, the final option is "the municipality completing the work under a remedy process or referring the matter to the courts." Provincial official recommends tenants file for rent abatement Melissa Mosher, the director of residential tenancies, said she could not address Crane's specific case for privacy reasons, but for "anyone struggling to get repairs made, it must be difficult for them, frustrating, I imagine not the way someone wants to live." Mosher recommended tenants in this situation request a rent abatement, or reduction in rent, until repairs are done. She said without a rent abatement being ordered, it "could be a little bit more difficult" for a tenant to enforce repairs. For this reason, she said her department is working on changing the forms used to apply for a hearing to make it clearer that filing for a rent abatement is an option. "It's certainly something that … I want to be used more often because I think it's a much more effective way," Mosher said. "It's something that I'd like to work on to try to improve with my team." No response from landlord Property records show Crane's building is owned by a numbered company. Nova Scotia's Registry of Joint Stock Companies shows the director and president of the company is Saberi, who is also the chairman of United Gulf Developments Inc., a company that owns and develops residential and commercial properties in the Halifax area. CBC News attempted to contact Saberi through his company and through the property manager at Crane's building, but did not receive a response by deadline. MacIntosh, the lawyer, said she isn't representing Crane in this case, but she has previously represented a tenant in Crane's building who had a similar flooding issue and also struggled to enforce the repairs.
BBC News
26-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Shrewsbury artist outraged by second home tax bill on only house
A woman unable to move into her new home during repairs received a bill for £3,000 in extra council tax because the local authority deemed her a second home Rose from Shrewsbury received a bill totalling £6,603.20 - Band F tax plus a 100% second home premium - despite only owning one property. "The whole thing felt like a little bit of a stitch-up, and quite malicious", she said.A spokesperson for Shropshire Council, which has since removed most of the extra charge, said the second home premium was "charged for any period that the property is not occupied as a main residence". Miss Rose picked up the keys to her new home in the Greenfields area in April - but she could not move in as it had no hot water or lived with her parents in Wolverhampton for a few weeks while works were completed, during which time the bill April, second home owners in Shropshire have had to pay double the usual council tax. Miss Rose said she had let the authority know that she would not be moving in fully until the hot water and heating were fixed."At no point, in any emails or when I filled in online forms, did I say I was a second home owner," she said, adding that she had "just tried to be open and honest about what my living situation was.""It just opened the floodgates."Miss Rose said she felt like "it's up to me to prove to them I don't have a second home." Miss Rose, a former journalist, is now a self-employed artist who specialises in lino-cut income is not stable, fluctuating between £6,000 and £24,000 each year - which she said made the second home premium on her council tax unaffordable."If I'm very lucky, I'll sell a painting here and there - I'm just not the right person to go after," she said."I don't have a string of lovely cottages in Wales or anything like that." Shropshire Council has reduced the bill now the repairs are it has told her an extra payment of £118.57 remains due in for a two-week period in council stated the house was furnished during this time, meaning it qualified for the second home tax - something Miss Rose said was "totally irrelevant.""You could have one chair, you could have four chairs - I really don't know at what point a house becomes 'furnished'," she said. "I found it quite offensive to be put in this second home owner bracket and quizzed on how many sticks of furniture I've got." A spokesperson for Shropshire Council said "the classification of a second residence is a furnished property that is not a person's place of residence."While there is an exception for property in need of or undergoing major repair to make it habitable, this exception does not apply to substantially furnished dwellings." Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
26-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
How much of the £39bn in affordable homes will be shared ownership?
"It's vital that we don't see the next generation of homeowners caught up in these issues," says the chair of the Commons Housing Committee in response to a BBC investigation into shared ownership which revealed complaints over costs, transparency and Eshalomi MP says the committee wants to know how much of the recently announced £39bn government investment in social and affordable housing will be spent on different tenures including the part-buy, part-rent shared owners have got in touch with the BBC to express their concerns, including Lee, who says the scheme is a "gimmick".The government told BBC London: "Shared ownership has a role to play in supporting households into home ownership, but we are aware of the challenges faced by some who have entered the scheme."Since the BBC investigation was published, more people have got in touch to talk about their issues with shared ownership, including difficulties in emailed in because he wanted "people to know about the problems before they consider buying one". He bought 40% of a shared ownership one-bedroom flat in north-west London in 2012. Its value was £174,000 and his share cost £70,000. "It seemed like the cheapest option so I decided to give it a try."But 13 years on, he says he believes the scheme is "a gimmick". He adds: "They make it look affordable but there are a lot of snags that come with it."They glamorise it but in the process of buying they don't tell you the service charge could triple, Section 20 notices."He has been issued with a number of bills totalling about £5,000 through Section 20 notices - formal notifications that a landlord intends to carry out major works - including for one bit of work that involved the painting of a wall in the colours of a housing association's logo. Lee believes that leasehold issues "are intertwined" with shared ownership, which hasn't been a "transparent" option. "Even though you don't own the whole flat, you still get all the obligations as if you own the whole thing. 'The joy has gone' Lee put his house on the market in July 2024 for £250,000 but after a lack of interest, it was reduced to £215,000 in ownership sales are normally subject to a nomination period during which the housing association or landlord has the exclusive right to find a buyer for the home, but Lee managed to have that process waived."I decided the best thing to do is come out. The last six months I've been with a high street agent but I've had no joy. I've had one viewing. Now the only option is to go through quick sell which means I get a lot less money."Lee wants to go back to private renting because "at least you know where you stand".He says it's had a huge impact on his mental health, and "the joy out of living has gone". Responding to the BBC investigation, Eshalomi said: "It is quite worrying when you see the amount of complaints going to the ombudsman - and 44% for London"I think it is around working with the sector about what steps they are putting in to improve this, and engaging with residents and the transparency of the charges."When you've got people feeling like they're trapped, like they've got nowhere to go to. We need to look at the financial impact this is having on so many people."It's really important that we look at how this has happened and what we can do to help." As part of the current five-year affordable homes programme due to be completed in 2026, the government is aiming to build up to 180,000 homes for people whose needs are not met by the private market. Some 44,000 to 56,000 of these will be affordable homes for ownership - most of these will be shared June, the government announced £39bn of investment for affordable homes over 10 years to deliver on the government's goal of building 1.5 million new the government has yet to give details, it has confirmed it will "prioritise social rent homes" and "fund other kinds of homes including shared ownership and affordable rent". Further details will be published shortly on the tenures of homes and the schemes the investment will fund, as well as the timeline for opening Phillips from Shared Ownership Resources, a project championing the interests of shared owners, says the homes on the scheme "come in a variety of forms, with different levels of risk and benefit".She adds a "lack of national data and robust, independent research on long-term outcomes for different demographics" makes it "more challenging to identify precisely what role shared ownership should play in the new £39bn Affordable Homes Programme". 'Concrete steps' Jo Short from the Shared Ownership Campaign, which educates and informs potential buyers, says the scheme "won't be for everyone, but it provides a way to take a step on to the property ladder for those locked out of the open market. It is an option to consider when the only alternative is renting privately."The introduction of Key Information Documents for every shared owner, along with two-factor affordability assessments and greater flexibility all ensure that shared ownership will continue to evolve." A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "Shared ownership has a role to play in supporting households into home ownership, but we are aware of the challenges faced by some who have entered the scheme."We are considering what more can be done to improve the experience of shared owners, alongside consulting this year on implementing measures to drive up transparency of service charges."Tom Copley, the deputy mayor of London for housing and residential development, said: "The mayor has taken concrete steps to support the affordability of shared ownership homes for Londoners, including using planning powers to determine that housing costs for shared ownership should not exceed 40% of a household's net income and setting best practice for housing providers in managing service charges."We will continue to work with the government to ensure there are greater protections for Londoners who have bought their homes through shared ownership and that London has the share of funding it needs to deliver more new social and affordable homes."
