A mum from Cornwall being evicted from her rented home has been told her and her kids could be forced to move to Wales - and that she could see it as “a holiday.” Mum-of-three, Rae Layton has rented her Ponsanooth home for around 15 years, but was handed a Section 21 eviction notice last week - and has now been told she might have to move 240 miles away.
Mrs Layton, under the notice, has until the middle of July to find a new place to live. However, as with many others, this has proven effectively impossible with the high prices and extraordinary demand for rented houses, reports Cornwall Live.
She said her landlady served the notice last Friday (April 22), and “would not be surprised” if it ended up as an Airbnb or sold on for a premium. “I don’t blame her,” Mrs Layton said, “It’s worth £100,000 than it would have been a year or two ago.
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“But I’m single, self-employed, I have kids, cats. And now I have nowhere to go. A friend of mine who’s an estate agent basically told me we’re screwed.
“Private landlords have so many applicants, and they always choose couples, people with no kids, people with two incomes. I’ve signed up to Homechoice but it could take ages.”
Homechoice, Cornwall’s social housing waiting list, had more than 15,000 families on it as of September 2021. Mrs Layton said if she fails to find a place to live by her July eviction date, the next stage will be a place in emergency accommodation.
Unlike temporary or social housing, which is tied to where a person lives, emergency accommodation is the closest place with space. Mrs Layton was told by a Cornwall Council worker that she could be placed in Plymouth, or even Cardiff, due to low availability and high demand.
She said: “Yesterday they phoned me and said emergency accommodation will be Cardiff or Plymouth. But even then, these places are like B&Bs and Premier Inns so I could be moving around all the time.
“My eviction date is July 15, and the council worker told me that my kids can look at it as a holiday. If it were in person I’d have punched her in the face.
“I work in Falmouth, my kids go to school here. At the minute my only choice, the only thing I can do, is send them to live with the boy’s dad in Mawnan Smith.
“My kids are my everything. And now I have to be split up, it’s better they have a roof over their head but I have a 12 year old going through teenage hormones and all that and now he has to be pulled away from his mom.
“It’s just wrong. Everyone in this situation needs help.”
Mrs Layton said she understands her plight has been made far worse by the ongoing housing crisis in Cornwall. Rising prices, demand, and a lack of social housing has given rise to a plague of private rental evictions.
These evicted tenants then have nowhere to go, with CornwallLive frequently reporting on those who face being moved out of county and away from family and friends.
She continued: “Something needs to be done, really. There should be caps on renting, locals should be offered properties before anyone else.
“And landlords shouldn’t be greedy. After Covid, when everyone had such a bad two years, now all this is happening.”
A Cornwall Council spokesperson said: "Our priority is to keep people safe, and we are working hard to find suitable emergency accommodation for all those who need it. We sympathise with the position that some residents are finding themselves in as Cornwall continues to face extreme pressure on the availability of housing. We do everything possible to keep residents within their own communities.
"The Council has established emergency accommodation and is buying and refurbishing homes to provide medium-term temporary accommodation, but the current unprecedented demand does mean that we are having to use emergency accommodation hotels. In a very small number of instances, we may have to offer accommodation outside Cornwall in the short term and as a last resort. We seek to move people back as soon as we can Cornwall and continue to offer support to help them find long-term homes."
