Affordable housing row leads to tenant refusing to leave

1:00pm Friday 9th March 2007

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"I AM not going. They will have to evict me."

Debbie Maddox had a long-running dispute over her home in Sankey that is coming to a head.

It's an affordable home, which should have gone to people fighting to get on the property ladder - but instead it was rented out to her.

She did not realise the house's origins at first, and over the past two years paid £525 a month rent.

The housing scheme's legal agreement was not tight enough and only one out of five houses went to council-nominated buyers.

Talks to buy her home did not work out, and Debbie, a cancer nurse with a partner, said she now won't go quietly.

"The fact this was rented out for two years makes the whole affordable housing policy an absolute farce, as far as I am concerned," said Debbie, who lives in Fairford Close on the Briarswood development, off Hood Lane North.

"My lease runs out on March 11 but I am not going. They will have to evict me. When I move out there's nothing to stop it being rented again."

Her councillor, Alan Litton, (LD), Sankey South, said: "Renting out a property is certainly not in the spirit of the original agreement. It feels like it was something that slipped through the net. I think it's regrettable. I think the council certainly has tightened up its policy."

Pat Norris, the homeowner, said: "I did not buy the property for the purpose of renting it out. The only reason it has been rented out for so long is because Miss Maddox has refused to leave."

She said talks to buy the property broke down when Ms Maddox backed out. Mrs Norris said: "It has been her choice to rent when she could buy one of her own."

The ombudsman said there was no maladministration but noted the original agreement was such that there was always going to be a limit to what could be achieved'.

The council said there is now an agreement that affordable housing must be the sole residence of the person who bought the house.