Dear forum reader, I am writing this on behalf of my Parents who need your help with a housing issue. My Parents who are in their late 60's have a commercial lease with a right to residential dwelling upstairs. They have lived in Shepherds Bush at this residence for 28 years and run the shop as a partnership for the same length of time. Since 2009 my father has been diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease which has progressed to a stage now where he has become severely disabled and both myself and my mother are his full-time carers. The reason I need your help is that at the beginning of this year my parents decided to sell the lease, as my mother could no longer cope with everything, and my father could no longer function in this capacity obviously. Therefore, they found a buyer, agreed a price and went ahead with asking for the Landlord's consent. The property does require repairs and has a schedule of dilapidations is outstanding as my father could no longer comprehend or undertake this, the buyer has agreed to undertake work to comply with these. The Landlord is refusing consent for my parents to sell the lease. He is aware of my father's condition through solicitors but yet won't acknowledge this. The property is not disabled-accessible for my father, has no central heating or double glazing, and we cannot afford to put this all in place now, let alone my father be around while work is taking place. Our solicitor has explained to him that the prospective new tenants wish to refurbish the whole property anyway, so will deal with and oustanding dilapidations at the time they take over the lease, and they are prepared to put this in writing also. My father's condition is deteriorating all the time, and my mother cannot run a business and care for my father. Surely they are breaching a disability rights issue? If it were not for my father's disease they would not be asking for Landlord's consent to sell so surely the Landlord is discriminating against them? The way they are being treated seems totally unfair. They have blatantly refused our request to assign, so our only options now seems to be to try and assign without consent (which I think no one will agree to) or go to court to get a declaration that we can assign (which will probably cost alot of money I'm thinking!). There are only 2 years left on the lease. Am reaching the end of my tether with this, please help.

Hi All, Basically its like this. I work at a military establishment with a woman who is starting to drive me nuts, basically. She has obsessive compulsive disorder - don't get me wrong, I fully respect she has the condition but she's making my working life that much more unbearable. She's even confiding in a work colleague that she went to see a psychologist because she said that I stress her out at work and to hear that second hand from a work colleague was not too pleasant to be honest. I have had a problem with pen chewing and putting things in my mouth, chewing my nails etc. as far back as I can remember and there seems to be no signs of it letting up - despite my best efforts, I find myself relapsing and every now and again, which has become a bit more occasional of late, find a pen or something else in my mouth, be it my fingers for biting my nails or whatever. However whenever I have been at a workstation using the keyboard or been somewhere else and this is usually some while after I have bitten my nails, for example, then she is there cleaning the desk area and I am made to feel like a dirty person - don't get me wrong - I fully respect her condition but I'm being made to feel that I can't even put my hands near my mouth or pick up a pen in fear she's going to put in a complaint and I think that I am going to be on the receiving end of something unpleasant and the fact that she has a mental illness will work against me. Furthermore, she is rather cold toward me in the office and I feel the tensity in the office is going to reach a peak before long. We have been open and honest about our feelings in the office as well. I can't help what I do at the end of the day and as I explained, since I've been a nipper, its been a recurring problem for me. Can someone offer me some advice as to what the best solution is as I will not take kindly to an official complaint from my supervisor as I feel I've done little wrong and am trying hard to work on a problem I've had difficulty in resolving in the past. Regards