Well, how interesting. I have just had a telephone call from the Housing Benefit department at South Somerset District Council. The very nice lady explained to me that she was about to put a letter to me in the post advising me that J's Housing Benefit has been suspended.

Basically this is because J has told them that she hopes to be "out of the property by the end of the month" (meaning July). In order to avoid landlords being over-paid (heaven forbid!), this is their standard practice so that we (the landlords) are owed by the council rather than the other way round.

I was only thinking about this over the last couple of days anyway. Not the Housing Benefit-I mean I was thinking about J being gone from the property. Her notice expires on the 1st August so in theory we should be able to walk back into the property on the 2nd of August. If she hasn't gone, we would then have to take her to court which could take another 4-6 weeks and will cost us the court fees.

However, going on what she wrote in that text that I received from her (but which wasn't meant for me-click the Tag Text to read) and with what the Housing Benefit are saying, I hope it won't come to that and she will just go.

But I think I will contact the landlady from the flat below ours and ask her if there has been any movement from J; that is, has she been moving stuff out of the property? We have a garage beneath the flat that J had use of as part of her tenancy and I know for a fact that it was stuffed to the gunnels with clutter, so I would have thought that she must have made moves to clear that out at least.

Dare I be optimistic or am I heading for hassle? I so long for it all to be over.