So, Blossom Hill Cottage – will Helen return?
Where will she want to live? Two chances; either she’ll want to return to Blossom Hill Cottage, or she won’t. Given the unpleasant memories for her, it might not be the idyllic country cottage pictured on the BBC website. Still, in case she does want to go back there, I think I need to point Usha to the advice I gave in April about how to evict Rob (parts one and two).
It seems that Usha has been happily taking the rent money from Rob, without a care about where he’s getting it from. We know Rob has access to the £10,000 gift Peggy made to Helen, but surely this is all spent now? He’s been receiving sick pay from Bridge Farm, much to our general annoyance, but according to this blog on Rob Titchener’s Employment Problems, this won’t continue much longer – he’ll soon be out on his ear, to the cheers of all us listeners. Plus, he’s already told Pat and Tony that he has another job, with Damara Capital, although surely this must be in doubt now. Justin won’t want the bad publicity that would inevitably come from employing a serial abuser and rapist in such a high profile role. So, Usha, soon he’ll have no money to pay your rent, and then you’ll have problems. Get him out now!
The technical bit
In my earlier blogs about Helen, I outlined how a joint tenancy (one that names both Rob and Helen on the agreement) could be cancelled quite quickly. This type of tenancy is capable of being terminated by either one of the joint tenants, and the other party doesn’t have to agree. Now Helen is out of jail, perhaps a little walk to the Vicarage is called for, with Jack in his pushchair?
Of course, it’s possible that the cottage tenancy is still in Rob’s name only. If that’s the case, Helen doesn’t have the right to terminate it, but she can certainly put the idea in Usha’s mind that it would be a good thing for her to evict him. And if Usha does issue a Section 21 notice to Rob, the good news is that due to the Deregulation Act 2015, there is no longer a requirement for the date specified in the notice to be the last day of a period of the tenancy. Depending on the date you serve the notice, this can speed up the process by up to a month.
The serious bit
Although Helen and Rob are fictional, you can help real life victims of domestic abuse with a donation to the charity Refuge through the Helen Titchener (nee Archer) Rescue Fund‘s Just Giving page.
We'll return to the history of Grange Farm and the Grundy family in a future blog. To keep updated, watch my posts on Twitter at @Linnir