British family who rented home to work in Qatar cannot return to UK due to Covid eviction ban 

A British family with a sick child are stranded in France after the Government’s ban on evictions due to coronavirus left them unable to get their home back.

Emma Burton and her family are living with her parents after the tenant renting their Merseyside home stopped paying rent and refuses to leave.

The situation for Emma and husband Russell, both 41, and their two children, Thomas and Poppy, has been made worse by the government’s extension of their ban on evictions until September 20.

The family left their home in Newton-le-Willows early in 2019 so that Emma and Russell could move to Qatar for work. But to hang on to their they rented it out through a letting agency.

Emma Burton and her family are living with her parents in France after the tenant renting their Merseyside home stopped paying rent and refuses to leave

However within a few month they decided the move was not working for them and so wanted to return to their home in the UK.      

However, in December 2019, they said their tenants stopped paying rent and refused to leave the family home to allow them to return.

The situation has been further complicated by the Government introducing a ban on evictions during the pandemic.

‘[The eviction ban] is now up until September 20, and then there’s a backlog with the courts as well so we don’t know when it will actually go to court so we can apply for a possession order to get them out of there,’ Emma told the Liverpool Echo.

Their son Thomas, four, suffers from a rare metabolic disorder and needs medication and a special diet, but because they are not French citizens he is unable to access the country’s health care system.

Emma is now worried Thomas will ‘suffer irreversible brain damage’ without proper medication.

Their son Thomas, four, suffers from a rare metabolic disorder and needs medication and a special diet, but because they are not French citizens he is unable to access the country’s health care system 

She said: ‘We can’t get back into our house, but because the tenant isn’t paying rent, we can’t afford a mortgage and to rent another property.

‘When we came from Qatar a dietitian kindly gave him enough food and medication which will keep him going until the end of September, and by that time we expected everything to be resolved and be back in the UK and we could re-register him with doctors and Alder Hey.’

But with the family stuck in France, they are worried Thomas’ medication will run out by the end of September.

And without any money coming from work or rent from their property, Emma could be left unable to afford their mortgage. 

The Government announced the four-week extension to the eviction ban on August 21, meaning in total no legal evictions will have taken place for six months.