So unfair (From Barry And District News)

So unfair

HOW ironic that just when gay couples are being afforded more rights on the death of a partner, a council tenant should be evicted from the home he shared with his mother for over 50 years! Had she died before his father, it seems there would have been no problem - for then his father's tenancy could have passed to him.

Surely, if this is indeed the law, then it needs changing. Would it not make more sense to pass the tenancy from one generation to another?

I would think Mr Rawnson has a legitimate right of appeal, if the facts described in your report on April 1 are accurate; apparently his mother was worried about the tenancy, and before she died she told her son to check with the council if he could stay there after she had gone.

He says he did that, twice, and was told he could stay. "But after she died," he said, "they checked the records and said I would have to leave."

This seems a clear case of incompetence on the part of the council as Mr Rawnson was wrongly informed, it seems only fair that he should be allowed to stay in his own home.

Maybe by now he has been offered alternative accommodation, but a home is more than that, and it seems quite inhumane that the poor man should lose both mother and home in such a short space of time!

A council spokesman said its hands were tied by the legal restrictions on tenancy transfers; then why didn't they tell Mr Rawnson this when he asked about it on two occasions?

Come on council - take the blame which is clearly yours, and put things right!

A Steele

Redbrink Crescent

Barry

Vale of Glamorgan