Private tenants turn to debt helpline
A charity helpline for people in debt has seen a dramatic rise in people in private rented accommodation seeking help with eviction.
The Consumer Credit Counselling Service says it is receiving at least 20 calls a day from people in private rented accommodation who are in arrears.
Louise Goad, helpline team performance manager, said landlords are moving increasingly quickly to seek eviction for arrears.
‘Landlords are probably realising people are in over their heads,’ she said.
‘We never used to hear of housing associations evicting but I have had couple of examples of that because of arrears.’
She said the main problem leading to arrears is where housing benefit is paid directly to the tenant and they have to spend it on something else, such as food or paying off credit. Paying benefits direct to tenants was introduced in April 2008.
Job loss and redundancy are also the cause in many cases of people falling behind in rent payments.
Ms Goad said: ‘We used to get called by people who had abused credit but now it’s people who can’t afford the essentials.’
Laura Carver, CCCS helpline manager, said: ‘Up until now, almost all of those calling for help in staying in their homes were owners who were struggling to keep up with their mortgages.
‘We have been surprised by the sudden rise in people in rented accommodation phoning us for help with eviction.
‘This suggests that the personal finance situation for those in rented accommodation is deteriorating to the extent they may end up homeless.’
Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, said: ‘It is particularly worrying that renters are already struggling to stay in their homes when in the near future some face deep cuts to housing benefit.
‘Our own clients tell us that they face problems meeting essential bills and get into debt because they already face shortfalls in housing benefit.
‘If we are to avoid a rise in homelessness the government must protect vulnerable renters and ensure any cuts do not hurt the poorest.’
Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: ‘Recent research from Shelter showed that 1.3 million households in the private rented sector are already falling behind with their finances. Sadly, the recent cuts to housing benefit will only make this worse as many tenants will be forced to make up an even bigger shortfall to order to pay their rent.’
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Readers' comments (2)
Anonymous | 01/07/2010 10:14 am
"""She said the main problem leading to arrears is where housing benefit is paid directly to the tenant and they have to spend it on something else, such as food or paying off credit. Paying benefits direct to tenants was introduced in April 2008.""
Anyone want to say "We told you so"????? And the Govt are still looking at extending this to Social tenants too. Not just paying of credit or buying food, but drink and cigarettes and eveything else too.
And now they are thinking of restricting housing benefit for long term JSA claimants too which will have the same effect, they wont make up the difference.
All housing benefit should be paid direct to the landlord and if govt want to restrict benefits, to "encourage" people to find work, then they should reduce the JSA (money in their hands which is where the difference will come from anyway if they paid it) not the housing benefit (which we all know they wont pay causing massive problems for landlords and increasing evictions and homelessness).
The Govt need to stop being ideolistic and wanting everyone to be more responsible and be practical and realse this is actually going to make things worse and not better.
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Anonymous | 01/07/2010 11:05 am
The quicker this government deal with the housing crisis and get councils building houses again, the better off we'll all be. They want to reduce the housing benefit bill, get some houses built. They want people back in work, get some houses built.
The answer is very simple, it's just disgusting that they don't want to deal with the real problem!
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