Rent battle costs us 200 grand

Battle to evict mother on benefits owing £3,500 rent costs taxpayers £200,000

The battle to evict a mother from her home because she owed more than £3,500 in rent arrears ended up costing taxpayers £200,000.

Town Hall bosses wanted to kick Rebecca Powell out of her house because she was in so much debt to the council on the accommodation she was given.

She was given the house because she was homeless and received thousands of pounds in benefits.

Her case was then dragged through the County Court, Appeal Court and the Supreme Court, ended up costing £200,000.

That's weird. She was given the house because she is homeless and she is receiving benefits? So where does the rent money come from? If she is ex-homeless and on benefits, surely she gets housing benefit to pay the rent? So why on earth is she in debt to the council? Have I missed something?

Anyway. The council wanted her out of the property (presumably so she can become homeless and , er...get a house) so why was it so difficult to evict her if she is so far behind with the rent payments?

The Supreme Court said that - under the controversial European Convention on Human Rights – this would be a breach of the right to ‘respect for a person’s home’.

Now that is a troubling ruling. What about the right of the property owner to get paid? Does this mean renters can now just stop paying rent and appeal to the human rights act to keep their houses anyway? It certainly seems that way.

Passing judgment last week, Lord Hope made it clear the ruling had its origins in Strasbourg. He said the ‘time had come to accept and apply the jurisprudence of the European court’.

Or...

We could tell the unelected buggers in Strasbourg to fuck the fuck off.

I hope we start to see a lot more cases like this in the news. It can't be very long before the concept of EU membership becomes so unacceptable to the British public that we finally force that referendum we were promised.