An orphaned student fears she could be made homeless after being forced to hand over more than £18,000 in charges on her dead mother’s housing association home.
Chantelle Zaabu is being held liable by Clarion Housing Group for £18,188.23 in use and occupation charges which continue to grow.
She now lives in student accommodation away from the four-bedroom property in Penge, south London, and says she has been suicidal while battling the housing association and grieving her mother who died of cancer in 2019 , as well as her father figure who also died weeks apart.
The student says that the situation has left her feeling "suicidal and depressed" and at the end of her university term this year, she’ll be made homeless.
Chantelle's biological dad died the year she was born in 1996 and now with no primary carer, the 25-year old said: “I'm depressed and suicidal. I've kind of been on a low level, it's been really tough.
“I haven't been able to grieve the loss of my parents, I haven't been able to have a normal life. This has disrupted every facet of my life. This has affected everything in my life, my education."
In 2019, when Chantelle’s mother Norah, 58, died the Londoner says she tried to gain succession on the tenancy in hopes to be rehoused in a smaller property.
However, the student says that Clarion Housing Group disputed her succession request and instead issued a notice to quit before she had moved into student accommodation.
She said: “Three months after my mum passed they were trying to get rid of me. It’s the perfect storm, you're suffering the loss of a parent so let's try and evict you, put you through all these things on top of everything you're already going through. They lack humanity. They lack empathy.”
The student decided to challenge the refusal to grant her succession by contacting her local MP Ellie Reeves as well as the Housing Ombudsman. She was granted a discretionary succession and £150 in compensation for Clarion Housing’s maladministration in dealing with her case.
The engineering student said: “I was experiencing such profound feelings of bereavement and loss, I was in the thick of it. I had lost both my parents, I was figuring out how I'm going to move in the world, I was trying to get on with my studies. It was really, really awful and gruelling.”
However, months later, Chantelle says the discretionary succession was withdrawn and that she instead received an email with an attached file containing backdated use and occupation charges.
The student said: “I got an email that has a PDF attached to it and it says you've been charged, we've been charging you £104 per week. By the time I had received that PDF, the payments were already backdated. I'm at however many grands.”
But the student says she never agreed to pay the charges as the home was never put in her name. She said: “There is no legal document that is being signed to agree to pay rent. If they had agreed for me to succeed the tenancy then it would have been in my name but I never received the paperwork.
“It's not in my name it's in the name of my mum but you can't claim rent from someone who is deceased. They've pinned it on me. They can take the house, I have too much trauma attached to the place but they have to take the debt with them.”
The engineering student has decided to launch a GoFundMe in a bid to raise money to pay the charges and it currently stands at £100 out of £20,000 for rent charges she believes accumulate in the coming weeks.
She says that she still aims to graduate but that the battle with Clarion Housing has disrupted the main thing her mother told her to always focus on - her education.
The student said: “My degree is extremely demanding. While my mum was living, she had a no working during school kind of thing, I've stuck to that personally. I've had to stop and start and stop and start. I've had to sit down with tutors, decision-makers at university to try and explain to them that this is what is happening. My personal losses have been beyond measure.”
After having postponed one of her exams, the Londoner worries that when she leaves her student accommodation her mental state will worsen as she’ll have nowhere to live while sitting the exam. She said: “I've actually moved an exam. There's an exam I didn't sit because of my mental state at the time. I'll be sitting an exam in August with nowhere to live and nowhere to go.”
A spokesperson for Clarion Housing Group said: “We appreciate this has been a distressing time for Ms Zaabu and are very sorry for the loss of her mother. Social housing is in high demand and scarce supply in London and there remain tens of thousands of families on housing waiting lists.
“We offered Ms Zaabu a tenancy at a one bedroom property in her local area, which would meet her housing need and ability to pay. However, she declined this offer and advised us she would only consider a home in Zone 1 or Zone 2 of London.
“Demand is particularly acute in Zone 1 and 2 and when a home becomes available it must be offered to a household in the highest need.
"Despite frequent attempts to contact Ms Zaabu, she has not been engaging with us. We encourage her to get in touch with Clarion again and we will do all we can to support her to find a suitable home.”
However, Chantelle claims she never received any offer for a property and that she continues to be charged. In addition, the student says she has contacted the housing association on numerous occasions but they have not responded to her.
