This content applies to England only.

Housing laws vary between England and Scotland. Get advice relating to Scotland

This section looks at what you can do if the council has asked you to leave, and when the council has the right to make you move on.

Eviction by the council from a permanent official site

If you rent a pitch on an official council site, you should have been given a written occupancy agreement, setting out your rights when you moved in. This is known as a written statement.

Security of tenure on an official council site

If you are living on an official council site, your security of tenure depends on whether you are living on a permanent site, or a transit site.

The council is only able to evict you from a permanent official council site, if it gets an order from the court.

The court will only make a possession order or allow the council to evict you if it is reasonable to make an order and one of the following situations apply:

• You have breached a term of the agreement (and this has not been resolved after the council served a notice asking you to remedy/put right the breach, eg by paying pitch fees you owe)
• You are not occupying the mobile home as your only or principal home.
• The condition of the mobile home or caravan is having a detrimental effect on the site.

Eviction from a council transit site

If you are living on a council transit site you can normally only stay for up to three months.

Eviction by the council from an unauthorised site

If you are on council owned land, the council should take all circumstances into account before deciding whether to evict you.

If the council does need to move you on, they should take your welfare into account before doing so - see 'what does the council need to take into account' below to find out more.

Eviction for antisocial behaviour

If you live on an unauthorised site, and the council is evicting everyone for antisocial behaviour, they should first make sure that your whole group isn't being punished for the bad behaviour of a few individuals. If you feel this is the case, talk to the site manager, Gypsy/Traveller liaison officer or other council representative and make sure they understand this. The council should then only evict the troublemakers, and leave you in peace.

You can get help and advice on dealing with the council from an adviser in your area - use our directory to find one.

Eviction by the council from a private site

Even if a landowner has given you permission to park up on their land, the council may be able to evict you if your camp doesn't have planning permission. The council will first need to serve an enforcement notice or a stop notice ordering you to leave. If you don't comply with the notice, you may face a fine and even imprisonment for up to two years.

The council must also serve the enforcement notice on the owner of the land, and both you and the landowner can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. You can find out more about this by reading the page on enforcement appeals on Direct.Gov. For help and advice, contact a solicitor or a planning law expert, such as Planning Aid, who offer free advice on planning issues.

If you lose your appeal but still don't leave, the council has the right to move you on.

When can the council move me on?

The council has wide-ranging powers to ask people to leave and remove any vehicles from land where they do not have permission to be there, which includes:

• situations where permission was once given, but has since been withdrawn, or
• where you are staying on an unauthorised site and have been asked by the council to move on, or
• if you’re camped on highways and other roads.

The council also has the power to remove you if your camp is causing a public health hazard, for example:

• because it doesn't have proper toilets,
• is polluting water supplies, or
• because rubbish is piling up.

What does the council need to take into account?

The council has the power to move you on if you are living on a private or an unauthorised site (only the courts have the power to evict you from an authorised council site). But before moving you on, the council should take into account your welfare and the welfare of anyone else in your household.

This means that the council should consider their duties to:

• look after the rights of any children in your household - by law, the council must provide assistance for 'children in need', which could include ensuring your children have accommodation, including accommodation on an appropriate site
• provide education to all children of school age - for example, the council must consider whether your removal from the site will disrupt your children's education, or prevent them from being able to go to school
• provide health and welfare services - the council may decide not to move you on if this means you won't be able to access health and welfare services
• help homeless people - the council has a duty to do all it reasonably can to prevent homelessness, and to provide homeless people with a place to stay while it decides whether or not they are entitled to permanent housing. Again, this could include providing you with a site to stay on if you have nowhere else to go. The page on Gypsies/Travellers and homelessness has more on this.

In order to make a decision, an officer from the council must visit the site and talk to you about your situation. This will give you a chance to put forward your case, for example:

• to tell the council that you have nowhere else to go,
• that your children are attending the local school, or
• that you have health problems.

You can ask an adviser to help you work out what you want to say.

What if the council decides to move me on?

If the council decides that you need to be moved, they'll give you a removal direction, requiring you to move on as soon as you're practically able to.

If you don't think the council has taken all the issues listed above into account, you should make an official complaint using the council's complaints procedure, and contact a solicitor or law centre as soon as possible. A solicitor will be able to help you challenge the council's decision. For example, they may be able to apply for a judicial review of the decision, or get an injunction preventing the council from moving you on.

However, if the council directs you to move on, and you don’t leave, you will be committing a criminal offence (unless you have applied for judicial review and are awaiting the decision).

What can the council do to make me move?

The council will usually get bailiffs to carry out the removal itself. The police may also turn up, but they probably won't get involved in the removal unless there's trouble.

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