A charitable businesswoman who feeds homeless people in Lincoln at Christmas has spoken of her own struggle to find a permanent home even though she earns £19,000 a year.

Caterer Patricia Cawdron, 43, who has arthritis in her lower back and both hips, wants to live in a bungalow that would be more suitable for her health needs.

Patricia Cawdron fed homeless people over Christmas

She is technically homeless because she does not have a home - and she doesn't know why.

She has been living in a single room at a friend's house in Skellingthorpe for the past five months after the owner of her previous house sold up.

She pays £400 a month for the current lodgings, plus £130 for a lock-up where her belongings are in storage.

Ms Cawdron, who runs Birdies Snack Shack, in Sadler Road, says she has been turned down for two properties because she is self-employed and cannot show proof of earnings as she is switching to tax self-assessment.

There was also the matter of an old County Court Judgment for £300 which she says is now being resolved. 

And Ms Cawdron has lost the £100 fee she paid a Lincoln lettings agency for credit and reference checks on her second application.

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Ms Cawdron said: "I applied for a property through them in September or October 2018 but the owner decided to go for someone in full-time work, not someone who is self-employed.

"I applied again in January 2019 and this time paid a referencing fee of £100.

"I told them I might have an old CCJ and a check showed that I owed £300 from a phone bill from three years ago - this is now being addressed.

"I didn't get the property but they still took my fee.  I'd told them that my earnings figures had been done but not inputted online due to me changing from an account to self-assessing my tax return.

"I said I could provide a guarantor for the rent but still I was refused.

"If someone like me who's earning and has their own business cannot get the property they want, what hope is there for people on benefits?"

The charity Shelter says someone is homeless if they have nowhere to stay and are living on the streets, but that people can be homeless even if they have a roof over your head, including staying with friends or family.

Ms Cawdron added: "I am trying to run a business, deal with my health issues and home hunt.

"I cannot get help from the council because I have no dependents and I'm not in a wheelchair or over 55.

"I am depressed and frustrated by it all.  I go out once a year at Christmas and feed the homeless but I never thought with my income I would be homeless.

"It's now affecting my mental and physical health and my business."

The estate agent told Lincolnshire Live: "We always ask our tenants to be open and upfront.

"The CCJ was flagged up by referencing and she said she did not know about it - people don't always realise they may have a CCJ against them.

"I can understand that she feels fed up having paid £100 and not got the property she wanted but we did everything by the book."

The company added that it is normal practice to seek an employer reference from working people and proof of earnings from self-employed people.

They added that people who may be struggling financially are asked for a guarantor.

Better protection for renters is coming soon

More than five million renters are to be given protection from unfair letting agent fees when the Tenant Fees Act comes into force on June 1, 2019.

The new rules will cap security deposits and abolish most upfront fees for things such as credit checks, references and admin charges, reports The Mirror.

Citizens Advice hailed the decision as a "landmark moment" for the millions of people who rent privately.

"For too long families and other renters have had to hand over hundreds of pounds on unfair and uncompetitive letting fees every time they moved home," the charity's chief executive Gillian Guy

According to Government statistics, tenants are currently being charged £337 in fees on average for tasks related to cleaning services, name changes and credit checks.

Banning letting agent fees will improve transparency for renters, as currently fees are not explained clearly and tenants can be charged very different and sometimes very high amounts for similar services, according to the Government.

The Act will ban all but a small amount of exempted costs as a condition of the “grant, continuance, assignment, termination or renewal” of an assured shorthold tenancy or licence agreement.

Fees that will be scrapped include credit checks, inventories, cleaning services, referencing, administration charges and gardening.

While the ban on tenant fees is going ahead, a proposed cap on tenancy deposits to three weeks' rent has been blocked.

Under the new rules, landlords and letting agents will no longer be allowed to charge you for miscellaneous admin charges and so forth, but many believe this could push rent up as a result.

Alexandra Morris, at online letting agent MakeUrMove said it could have "many unintended consequences" as a result of landlords having to foot the bill instead.

“The bill has a much wider impact than simply removing tenant fees and it’s likely to have many unintended consequences.

"Our fear is that, while the Government’s intention was to make the private rental sector more affordable and fairer for tenants, they will likely end up worse off.

“Many landlords, particularly the smaller landlords who make up the biggest proportion of the private rental sector and often operate on very tight margins, will be forced to raise rents to cover the increased costs they will incur as a result of the bill.

“Landlords will face additional upfront costs including referencing, and because of their already tight margins they will need to recoup these during the initial tenancy period (often six months) to ensure renting their property remains financially viable."

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