Generally yes, the council will not attempt to rehouse someone unless they have been served with an eviction notice. The tenant is unlikely to be being deliberately difficult, but if they vacate the premises before an eviction notice, they are seen as making themselves intentionally homeless and the council will not attempt to rehouse them.

It's a terrible system designed to make people fail.

I think they're correct. I'd suggest speaking to the First Tier Tribunal Service.

I'm confused by this too. I'll be asking my tenant to leave soon, and everything I've read suggests that even though I serve the proper forms, and give the correct notice period, I still need to apply to the Tribunal, and only once they issue an eviction notice, is the tenant required to leave.

You're going to need an eviction order. Whilst you can do this yourself, you may feel more secure by having a solicitor do this for you.

And buckle up for a protracted wait until you get the house back. Current processing time at the First tier Tribunal for an eviction order is 7-8 months on average.

Source: this is what I do for a living.

Do you have any more insight on the tenant - how long have they been living there? What’s their finance situation? How long do they have to find somewhere else? Have they bought furniture or is the property fully furnished? How long was the tenancy? Have they still been paying rent in that time since you gave them an eviction notice?

I know you want them out of your property but sometimes it is not that easy for the tenant to find somewhere new to live. My advice would be find out what the blocker is to moving out and see if you can help at all - could pay them to leave, let them take some of your furniture etc.

If you don't know, hire a lawyer or tenancy specialist, and do exactly what they say.

The only thing I would suggest for now is point out to the tenant that with an eviction on their record it will be near impossible to rent anywhere, and that you will be pursuing them for all the extra costs related to an eviction, which could mean they owe you a lot more and end up with a CCJ which will make most loans and even some jobs much harder to obtain.

Ask them if they need a few extra days, or help with moving - but in the meantime start the legal process. It can take quite a while.

Councils have been told by the Home Office not to do this, but they persist as they don't really care about the harm to private landlords (or indeed to the tenants), as long as it delays them having to find new accommodation for a few months.

Get an eviction order.

Serve them with an eviction notice, give them time to notify council, they will tell them to go to shelter who will tell them not to leave the property then go to first tier tribunal....I was that renter after 17 years got the eviction notice after a new company took over...it went well for us and the property company doing it the right way....our old house has been auctioned 4 times and still not sold 🤷🏻‍♀️.

We got a brilliant forever home due to the new company working with us, hope you get the outcome you would like xx

Remove all the doors

What would happen if you had a spare set of keys, emptied the place when they were out(at work perhaps), put their stuff on the car park or street outside, changed the locks and notified the council they no longer lived there!! Would you get arrested and would they be allowed to move back in? Genuinely Interested if the trouble you would get in would be worth it to get your property back, I’m not advocating this by the way but just curious.

Give them an eviction order ASAP. Before labor's national rule comes in.