Rent Arrears

We aim to make it easy for you to pay your rent, provide accurate information about your rent account, and ensure you have the support you need to manage your tenancy effectively.

If you are struggling to pay your rent and don’t contact us or fail to make an arrangement to repay what you owe, we will take recovery steps to collect any unpaid rent. This includes trying to contact you by phone, letter, and visiting your home. We will offer you advice and assistance upon a homeless prevention interview to explain the consequences of nonpayment of rent and the housing options available to you. We may take legal action through the County Court.  You will have to pay the costs of any court proceedings, and you could be evicted from your home.

Secure Tenants - we may serve you with a Notice of Seeking Possession.  This means we are planning to take you to court and get an order against you to pay your debt or take back your home.

Introductory Tenants - we may serve you with a Notice of Possession Proceedings. This means we are planning to take you to court to take back your home.  We will invite you to a review meeting to discuss why you haven’t paid your rent and explore an agreement to clear the debt.

If we take you to court, you should attend the hearing and get independent advice from a solicitor or law centre. The outcome of the court hearing will be that we gain mandatory possession of your home.

Problems Paying Rent? Contact Us

If you can’t pay your rent for any reason, please contact the Specialist Income Management or Tenancy Service Teams on 0800 833 160. You must also tell us if your circumstances change (for example, if you start a new job or if your partner joins or leaves the household). Contact us urgently if you have any difficulty paying your rent, so that we can help you at an early stage.

Agreements

If you make a written agreement with us to clear your debt, we will put the legal action on hold.If you then break this agreement, we will start recovery proceedings again.Any agreement we make will reflect your circumstances and how much extra you can afford to pay. 

If we take you to Court

We will tell the Court how much you owe, what you have paid and what we have done to help you manage your debt.We will normally ask the Court to award us our legal costs, which means that you will have to pay an extra amount on top of what you owe us in rent. 

The court order will normally require you to pay your rent plus an extra amount each week to pay off your arrears. This order will stay in force for as long as the Court says, or until you have paid off all your debt and any court costs. However, if the Court awarded an outright order of possession of your home, in addition to clearing all the arrears and costs you must also make an application to the court to request the possession order is set aside otherwise the order remains enforceable.

You can take someone with you to represent you in court.There is usually a duty solicitor or an adviser available at the Court, or you can get advice from the Citizens Advice Service or a solicitor.

Possession Orders

A possession order can end your tenancy and gives us the legal power to apply to the Court to evict you from your home.  If we do this, the Court will decide a when the possession order comes into force (normally 28 days from the court hearing date).  If you are an Introductory Tenant a possession order will require you to leave your home within 28 days although the Court may extend this for up to 42 days.

Breaking a Court Order

If you breach the terms of a Court order, we can apply to the court to evict you.

Before doing this, we will ask you to come to an interview to discuss your circumstances.  It may still be possible to reach an agreement to pay off some of your arrears. 

If you are evicted

If the Court grants us a possession order, we will tell the Council’s Homelessness Service, who may be able to offer you help, advice and temporary housing if you are evicted.  However, you may be considered to have made yourself intentionally homeless and would not be entitled to temporary or permanent re-housing by the Council.

Even if you are evicted, you will still be liable for the rent and court costs you owe.  The Income Management Team has an officer who specialises in former tenants’ debts, recovery steps will be taken to recover any unpaid rent, which may include passing the debt to a collection agency. This could affect your credit rating.

Support

If you are worried about how you can afford your rent, please speak to our Specialist Income Management Team or Tenancy Services Team on 0800 833 160. We also have a cost of living advice page on our website here: Cost of Living | South Essex Homes

If you miss a payment, an Officer will contact you. This can include attempts to contact you by phone, letter and a home visit.  They will discuss suitable ways you can make up the missing amount or make an agreement to pay off any arrears by instalments over a period of time. The Officer can also give advice on benefits and coping with other bills and debts. You can also get independent help from the local Citizens Advice Service.

The best way to deal with a debt is to contact us early, so we can help you deal with it while the amount is small enough to cope with. 

You can read our full Specialist Income Management Service Standard here: Specialist Income Management Service Standard | South Essex Homes