DRO advice on excluding rent arrears being repaid

h3lpneeded

Hi, I'm trying to help my sister who has run up debts over the past year including rent, water, electric, gas, council tax which in addition to previous credit card debt and a bank loan total £13,000. This is the third time she has been in this situation in the last 10 years and some of the debt is outstanding from 6 or 7 years ago. I have been with her to the Citizens Advice who initially considered a Debt Relief Order but they now say that her total debt exceeds £15,000 so she cannot apply for a DRO. The debt that takes her over £15K is from attachments to earnings orders from 8 and 6 years ago for rent arrears with £2,000 and £4,000 outstanding now. As she is repaying this and wants to continue to repay it is it possible to exclude it from the DRO so that she can then apply?

Also, if anyone has any advice on helping someone with mental health issues with control of finances such as third party orders (I think they are called) can you let me know. I am thinking now that the best thing to do from now on is manage her finances completely, set up direct debits for everything, order shopping for her, etc as she is in such a cycle of non-payment and debt that her family and friends have tried to help with and can't get her out of.

Finally, it is likely that she will be evicted by the landlord when her tenancy ends in two months so any advice there would be appreciated too. The local council has a 6-month backlog of applicants and say they won't help if she is classed as intentionally homeless. She is repaying rent arrears and they won't be included in the DRO so this shouldn't happen but she won't be able to get private rented again given her history. The rent arrears from the current property have to be excluded from the DRO as otherwise my sister and her two girls would be evicted immediately as she has already been to court for non payment.

Hoping someone will be able to help out there, thanks in advance if you can
x

P.S. I have removed this post from another forum as I didn't realise there was one for DROs

wba31

The values of rent arrears MUST be included in the DRO as balances, so they count towards the £15000 limit. There cannot be a choice to leave debts out so they can be repaid, however rent arrears can be repaid, at less than £50 a month but the balance must be put into the list of creditors.
If the debts including rent arrears were less than £15000, the repayment on arrears must be less than £50 per month if applying for a DRO.

Have you looked at applying for trust fund help to clear some of the utility arrears? might be worth contacting turn2us for help with this.

If a DRO is not an option (sounds like debt is £19k (13k + £6k rent arrears?) has bankruptcy been considered?