Carmarthen Mayor made homeless for Christmas
Carmarthen’s mayor was served an eviction notice hours before a new law was introduced to protect tenants.
Cllr Miriam Moules was made “homeless” by her landlord after being served a Section 21 notice from her letting agency.
The ‘no fault’ eviction notice meant Cllr Moules landlord didn’t need to give a reason for evicting her.
She and her husband were told to vacate their town centre home within two months even though they had nowhere else to live.
The day after the notice was served, a new law which extended eviction notices to six months became active.
It’s hoped the new law will offer tenants better protection and security, but Cllr Moules couldn’t benefit from it.
Nowhere to go
The mayor of Camarthen town council had lived in the property on a rolling contract for over 20 years and both her and her husband are jobseekers claiming housing benefits.
Speaking to In Your Area, Cllr Moules said: “There needed to be some overlap, some protection for those in existing contracts to avoid landlords being able to turf people out as the deadline approached on November 30.”
“We have to be out by January 21, but there’s nowhere for us to go that we can afford on Universal Credit in Carmarthen, and we’re being expected to move in the depths of winter.
“We are in talks with Carmarthenshire Council to see if they can help us find somewhere.”
Cllr Moules said she will continue to carry out her mayoral duties alongside having nowhere to live.
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
Apart from Fatshanks that is…
It does not matter whether she is Mayor or not. She is a responsible citizen and to treat her is such a way is abominable. It would be nice to ‘blacklist her landlord’ to provide a bit of justice, but I doubt if that will happen given the shortage of accommodation in the whole of Wales.
I did not mean she was entitled to special treatment over any other person it was the novelty of the headline, I have known many Mayors from Soho to John Sam, some 15 at least in Wales. I am more concerned that the nation is aware, as they wait for a train, that Mr Hunt, who let them down so badly when in charge of the health service now wants to shed more blood in his quest to get even richer…these people are a gene or two short of being human if you ask me…
The headline “Homeless for Christmas” is wrong she has to move out late January. This is very poor reporting as there may be another side to it but the reporter has not made any effort to get the other side.
Rwy’n cytuno. Mae unrhyw beth a allwn tuag at adrodd diduedd yn beth da. (I agree: impartial reporting is a good thing)
This doesn’t seems a fair article. Why did the Landlord have to serve notice? Was there other extenuating circumstances? This seems written from just one angle. I expected more from Nation.
It states “Cllr Moules said she will continue to carry out her mayoral duties alongside having nowhere to live” but she has somewhere to live; and 2 months to find somewhere else. The wording might be a little sensationalist.