If you are finding it difficult to pay your rent, contact us as soon as possible. It is important you do this before you owe too much money. We will always try to help you. We have a responsibility to collect rent, but we treat tenants sympathetically and as individuals.
We can arrange to visit you at home if necessary. Any information you give us or advice we give you is confidential. We are here to help.
You may want to contact other agencies such as the Citizens Advice or the National Debtline or Stepchange for money advice.
We can also refer you for more in depth support from a tenancy support agency called Parashoot.
We will always take action if you do not pay your rent. You may lose your home if you do not make arrangements to pay. If you are in arrears, contact your Income Officer as soon as you can.
What you should do
Contact the Council
If you owe rent to us, you should contact your Income Officer to get advice before the debt gets too large.
You can call Customer Services on 01883 722000.
E-mail: rents@tandridge.gov.uk
Or write to us at:
The Rent Team
Tandridge District Council
8 Station Road East
Oxted RH8 0BT
Make sure you are getting all the money you are entitled to.
Check if you are entitled to any housing benefit. You don’t have to be unemployed to qualify for benefits. Income Officers can give advice on benefits you may qualify for. If you need more expert advice they can refer you to an agency such as a Citizens’ Advice Bureau, or Stepchange. You can also seek help from one of the free debt advice agencies listed at www.gov.uk/debt-advice if you are struggling financially.
Work out what you spend your money on. Cut back on expenditure if possible.
Write down all the income you (and your partner) receive and what you spend your money on each week. Try to be as accurate and as honest as you can.
Look through the expenditure list you have made. Is there anything you can cut back on? Be realistic. Only cut out those things you can afford to do without. Remember these will be long term cutbacks and not things you can start to spend on again in a few months’ time.
Pay your most important debts (priority debts) first.
Make a list of everybody you owe money to. This includes rent, gas, electricity, council tax, water rates, credit cards, store cards, loans, overdrafts, HP, fines, catalogues etc. Write down the account numbers, the amount owing, any arrears, the weekly or monthly payments and the interest rate.
Priority debts are those you should pay first. If you do not pay priority debts, the consequences are more serious than for other types of debt. The debt with the highest priority will always be your rent, both the weekly rent which is due and any rent arrears that have accrued. If you do not pay your rent, you could lose your home.
Other priority debts include council tax, water rates, gas and electricity and fines.
Contact all your creditors to explain your position and tell them how much you can afford to pay
Once you have made arrangements for your priority debts, contact all your other creditors, even if it is only to tell them you can’t afford to pay.
Send a copy of your income and expenditure to all your creditors, including details of arrangements you have made with other creditors and details of the amount you are offering them (if anything). If interest is being charged on your debts, you could also ask them to freeze this until the situation improves.
Get advice from your Income Officer if you are unsure what to do
If you are unsure about any of the above or you would like to discuss your problems, please make an appointment to see your Income Officer. We will be sensitive and sympathetic to any difficulties you may be experiencing in paying your rent, as long as you contact us as soon as possible and don’t ignore the problem.
For complex cases of debt involving several creditors, you should contact your local Citizens’ Advice Bureau.
What we will do
The Income Officer will write to remind you of a missing or late payment, or if you are behind with your rent. If this happens, you should pay the debt straight away. If you do not and the debt continues to grow, the Income Officer will arrange an interview with you at home or at the Council Offices, so the matter can be discussed confidentially.
The Income Officer is here to help you and provide advice, which will include a discussion of any financial difficulties you are experiencing and ideas about how these may be resolved. This can involve:
- General advice about what benefits you may be able to claim to increase your income e.g. housing benefit or Universal Credit.
- Help you make a realistic agreement about the repayment of the rent owed, which takes into account any other debts you may have.
- Advice about other agencies who may be able to help e.g. Social Services, Citizens Advice Bureau etc.
If you contact your Income Officer and make satisfactory arrangements to repay the money, we will not usually take legal action.
Legal action
If you do not contact your Income Officer, or do not keep to the agreement you have made to repay the money, we may take legal action against you. If we take legal action, we will always offer to meet you first to explain what will happen and what your rights are.
The first step will be to serve you with a ‘Notice of Intent to Seek Possession’, (Notice of Seeking Possession if you are a secure tenant, a Notice of Proceedings for Possession if you are an introductory tenant, a Notice of Seeking Termination of Tenancy and Recovery of Possession if you hold a flexible tenancy, or a Notice to Quit if you hold a temporary tenancy).
This notice tells you how much rent you owe and that we may apply to the County Court for a Possession Order after 28 days. During the 28 days we will again try to reach a repayment agreement with you.
As long as an agreement is made and maintained, so the debt reduces on a regular basis, no further action will usually be taken.
If you have still not paid off your debt or reached an agreement with your Income Officer to repay the debt by regular instalments, we may apply to the County Court for a hearing date.
If this happens, you will receive a summons to appear in court. You’ll also receive a form for your defence, which you should fill in and send back to the court. If you get a summons, you should get advice as soon as possible.
Even if you choose not to get advice, it is important to go to court on the date set. If you are an introductory tenant or hold a temporary tenancy the court has no discretion, but to give the Council an outright possession order. This usually means 28 days after the court hearing you will have to leave your home. If you do not, we will request the court’s bailiff to evict you.
If you are a secure tenant or hold a flexible tenancy and make a reasonable offer of repayment, the judge may agree to a suspended Possession Order. This means you pay off your arrears in agreed instalments.
If you don’t keep to the agreement, we can apply for a bailiff’s warrant to evict you from your home. Our staff will attempt to contact you before this happens. Eviction can usually only be prevented at this stage by paying the outstanding debt in full.
Going to court means you may also have to pay court costs, which will be added to your rent account.
Other bills
If you have trouble paying any of your bills you can get advice from the Citizens Advice or National Debtline. Electricity and gas companies run schemes that let you spread the cost of bills. You can get more details about these schemes from your gas or electricity supplier.