Housing association rent arrears

leamingtonspaceman

I was a housing association tenant until recently.

Back in 2022 I had built up a rent arrears of around £1100. My housing association wrote to me about this. I contacted them immediately and a repayment plan was put in place.

I was contacted again in October 2023 to be told the rent arrears had gone down but not by much. I replied to this correspondence but received no reply.

I was contacted again in August 2024, and once again I responded in order to query the correspondence but received no reply.

I was then presented with a hand delivered letter later that August demanding I settle the arrears. I replied to this letter but received no response. The letter stated that they had made a clerical error in 2022 when they set up the direct debit and had requested monthly the amount that should have been taken weekly.

So, I replied again even though I hadn't received a response. I received no reply.

Finally I responded again giving them seven days to reply or the matter would be closed and no arrears due. I received no reply within that time and I wrote to them what I considered to be a final time to confirm that their lack of response had meant that they had missed my deadline. I received no immediate reply.

It wasn't until 38 days later that they wrote to me again, not mentioning any of the previous correspondence and again demanding payment. I responded to this and they didn't respond.

I left the property in March. Because of issues I'd had with them previously I did not leave a forwarding address. My housing manager never mentioned the rent arrears during the handover process.

I received a letter from them on 29th April at my new address, this being SEVEN months after I'd replied to their last letter.

The latest letter made no mention of any of my previous correspondence or any apology for not responding.

I replied and sent them screenshots of all of my previous correspondence that they had ignored including the deadline I gave them that they failed to meet.

They've replied and have said that they want to forget what has happened in the past and move forward and for me to suggest a payment plan.

I've responded again explaining that I have consistently tried to communicate with them regarding the arrears and after multiple attempts they left me no choice than to give them a deadline which they didn't even acknowledge.

I personally find it disrespectful that I would attempt to communicate with them on multiple occasions only for them to completely ignore me.

I believe that it is perfectly reasonable of me to have given them a deadline after multiple attempts to engage with them were ignored.

My feeling based on knowing how my housing association operate is that they will issue court proceedings.

The amount I owe is around £800. 

I would imagine that it would cost them more than that in costs to pursue the matter. I've moved 300 miles away so if it did go to court they would have to travel here and back and so would their solicitor.

Regardless, I did not bury my head in the sand and proactively tried numerous times to engage with my housing association only to be met with silence.

What are my options in this situation?

If this were to go to court, and I provide all the evidence I have of the multiple times I tried to engage with them, what would be the likely outcome?

I'm aware that there can be no definitive answer to this but I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience of being in a similar situation and what the outcome was?

One thing to note is that two years ago the housing association needed access to my property to perform fire safety checks. They failed to attend on three separate occasions, but took me to court for failure to allow access. Despite this, and despite them lying several times in their witness statements saying they had attended when they hadn't, the judge at the hearing was critical of me for refusing access and completely ignored my evidence.

So I am aware that even with overwhelming evidence, judges can simply favour one side over the other despite this.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you...

HampshireH

Your options are to set up a payment plan. Most housing associations have online accounts, web chat or email. 

They will apply to court but they won't come to you. They will pay legal fees but they will apply for the court to award those costs and for you to pay them.

You don't dispute the debt so start making payments.

If you're unhappy with the lack of response then you should go through their formal complaint process. If unhappy at the end of that ombudsman.

Most HAs have an advertised response time. If it's failed it's deemed a service failure. If you can evidence numerous failures then ensure they are in your complaint.

I'd suggest you call them/online chat and arrange your payments.


Giving them a deadline doesn't remove your liability for rent

leamingtonspaceman

Yes, their advertised response time is seven days so there were multiple service failures.

I was under the impression that court hearings were held at the court closest to the defendent?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "they will apply to ours"...? Who are 'ours'...?

I'm guessing you work for a housing association as you say "WE chat and email"...?

I can't do an online chat with them as I am no longer a tenant. I always deal with them via written correspondence as communicating with them by telephone is a horrendous experience.

Yes, I made a complaint previously but heard nothing back.

Is it really the suggestion that a tenant should be the one to actively chase a housing association to settle an arrears and keep chasing even when they don't reciprocate?

A payment plan was in place but they made a clerical error regarding that which meant the debt didn't get cleared.

To be honest, I have more than enough money to pay them off multiple times, but it's still £800 that I could give to charity or something rather than an incompetent housing association.

HampshireH

leamingtonspaceman said:

Yes, their advertised response time is seven days so there were multiple service failures.

I was under the impression that court hearings were held at the court closest to the defendent?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "they will apply to ours"...? Who are 'ours'...?

I'm guessing you work for a housing association as you say "WE chat and email"...?

I can't do anything online chat with them as I am no longer a tenant. I always deal with them via written correspondence as communicating with them by telephone is a horrendous experience.

Yes, I made a complaint previously but heard nothing back.

Is it really the suggestion that a tenant should be the one to actively chase a housing association to settle an arrears and keep chasing even when they don't reciprocate?

A payment plan was in place but they made a clerical error regarding that which meant the debt didn't get cleared.

I've edited it as should have said "court" and "web chat" just typos 

I'm not suggesting you chase I've suggested if you haven't had a response your follow the complaints procedure which if you haven't had a resolution to next step is ombudsman.

Ombudsman are very hot of HA service failures but are also slow to investigate.

You do however remain liable for the arrears and the debt.

It's weird they only allow online chat with customers who are tenants.

Have past experience of working for a HA yes. They would likely apply for a money claim online to obtain a CCJ (as they can't apply for possession). You'd have the options of paying or defending, defending would likely take it into court. I'm not sure where they would allocate it to.

Jude57

leamingtonspaceman said:

Yes, their advertised response time is seven days so there were multiple service failures.

I was under the impression that court hearings were held at the court closest to the defendent?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "they will apply to ours"...? Who are 'ours'...?

I'm guessing you work for a housing association as you say "WE chat and email"...?

I can't do anything online chat with them as I am no longer a tenant. I always deal with them via written correspondence as communicating with them by telephone is a horrendous experience.

Yes, I made a complaint previously but heard nothing back.

Is it really the suggestion that a tenant should be the one to actively chase a housing association to settle an arrears and keep chasing even when they don't reciprocate?

A payment plan was in place but they made a clerical error regarding that which meant the debt didn't get cleared.

To be honest, I have more than enough money to pay them off multiple times, but it's still £800 that I could give to charity or something rather than an incompetent housing association.

You were living in the property and were liable for rent. You failed to pay the rent and accrued substantial arrears. When notified of an error by the Housing Association in  frequency of payment, you seem to have stopped paying the arrears altogether and the total you have paid towards the arrears seems to be £300 (about £2.30 per week) in the, say, two and a half years since they were accrued. You then left the property without giving a forwarding address. These are the facts of the matter and, frankly, while the HA could have handled it better, it's still an outstanding debt that you owe and that's likely to be how a Judge would view it.

County Courts these days often hold hearings online or by telephone (it worked pretty well during the pandemic so many Courts continued with it) so that the chances of having the case transferred to your local County Court are minimal - and if it is heard locally and you're found liable, the HA can apply for costs which could include travel and accommodation.

It's quite possible that you will be ordered to pay; after all, you pay rent in exchange for a property to live in and the HA kept their part of the contract, you did not. You might get lucky with a Judge who is swayed by the lack of response from the HA to your repeated attempts to correspond with them about the arrears. Your claim to have been adversely affected by that would be that much stronger if you had continued making payments toward the arrears but it seems you took it as an opportunity to stop paying what you owed and to then stubbornly refuse to give a forwarding address when you left, forcing the HA to expend resources tracing you to seek payment.

If you're in a position to pay, do so. Or take your chances in Court (online or by phone) and if you're unsuccessful, pay immediately to avoid a County Court judgement which will, for the next 6 years, affect your credit file so the ability to get credit, a mortgage, a new tenancy, a car loan and, in some cases, your career, the latter potentially permanently.

ETA I don't work for a HA although I'm a tenant of one. I have, though, spent the last 30+ years in one Court or another.

leamingtonspaceman

Jude57 said:

leamingtonspaceman said:

Yes, their advertised response time is seven days so there were multiple service failures.

I was under the impression that court hearings were held at the court closest to the defendent?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "they will apply to ours"...? Who are 'ours'...?

I'm guessing you work for a housing association as you say "WE chat and email"...?

I can't do anything online chat with them as I am no longer a tenant. I always deal with them via written correspondence as communicating with them by telephone is a horrendous experience.

Yes, I made a complaint previously but heard nothing back.

Is it really the suggestion that a tenant should be the one to actively chase a housing association to settle an arrears and keep chasing even when they don't reciprocate?

A payment plan was in place but they made a clerical error regarding that which meant the debt didn't get cleared.

To be honest, I have more than enough money to pay them off multiple times, but it's still £800 that I could give to charity or something rather than an incompetent housing association.

You were living in the property and were liable for rent. You failed to pay the rent and accrued substantial arrears. When notified of an error by the Housing Association in  frequency of payment, you seem to have stopped paying the arrears altogether and the total you have paid towards the arrears seems to be £300 (about £2.30 per week) in the, say, two and a half years since they were accrued. You then left the property without giving a forwarding address. These are the facts of the matter and, frankly, while the HA could have handled it better, it's still an outstanding debt that you owe and that's likely to be how a Judge would view it.

County Courts these days often hold hearings online or by telephone (it worked pretty well during the pandemic so many Courts continued with it) so that the chances of having the case transferred to your local County Court are minimal - and if it is heard locally and you're found liable, the HA can apply for costs which could include travel and accommodation.

It's quite possible that you will be ordered to pay; after all, you pay rent in exchange for a property to live in and the HA kept their part of the contract, you did not. You might get lucky with a Judge who is swayed by the lack of response from the HA to your repeated attempts to correspond with them about the arrears. Your claim to have been adversely affected by that would be that much stronger if you had continued making payments toward the arrears but it seems you took it as an opportunity to stop paying what you owed and to then stubbornly refuse to give a forwarding address when you left, forcing the HA to expend resources tracing you to seek payment.

If you're in a position to pay, do so. Or take your chances in Court (online or by phone) and if you're unsuccessful, pay immediately to avoid a County Court judgement which will, for the next 6 years, affect your credit file so the ability to get credit, a mortgage, a new tenancy, a car loan and, in some cases, your career, the latter potentially permanently.

ETA I don't work for a HA although I'm a tenant of one. I have, though, spent the last 30+ years in one Court or another.

I have more than enough to pay them back several times over. They don't know that though, so I'll probably offer them £1 a month.

They'll probably make an error though and put it down as 1p per month.

They're a terribly incompetent bunch who really personify the word 'shambles', so we'll see.

I never gave them my forwarding address because I don't trust them with it. As part of a previous issue I had with them, they sent me a spreadsheet with all of my neighbours phone numbers, details of their communications with the HA and details of their medical conditions.

I think that's a just reason not to give a forwarding address.

fatbelly

At the moment the ball is in their court. Policies differ at Housing Associations. My local one  will write off debt more often than trying a court claim. They will however put this with a debt collector first. I think they use UK Search.

If they want to start a court claim on £800 debt it will cost them £70. They have 6 years to start a claim from the 'cause of action' and you restart the clock every time you acknowledge the debt. So if you want not to pay you also need to stop engaging along the lines you have. They will have got the picture by now.

Should they want to start a court claim they must first send a formal preaction letter before claim. You should respond to it like this

https://debtcamel.co.uk/letter-before-claim-ccj/

They are then free to send a court claim to the last known address.

You would want to defend a claim so you may want to let them know your correct address.

Each case then proceeds on its own merits. But the court would only be concerned with whether money was owed, and how much.

In the event of a judgement being issued, you can prevent this appearing on your credit file by paying within one month

HampshireH

leamingtonspaceman said:

Jude57 said:

leamingtonspaceman said:

Yes, their advertised response time is seven days so there were multiple service failures.

I was under the impression that court hearings were held at the court closest to the defendent?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "they will apply to ours"...? Who are 'ours'...?

I'm guessing you work for a housing association as you say "WE chat and email"...?

I can't do anything online chat with them as I am no longer a tenant. I always deal with them via written correspondence as communicating with them by telephone is a horrendous experience.

Yes, I made a complaint previously but heard nothing back.

Is it really the suggestion that a tenant should be the one to actively chase a housing association to settle an arrears and keep chasing even when they don't reciprocate?

A payment plan was in place but they made a clerical error regarding that which meant the debt didn't get cleared.

To be honest, I have more than enough money to pay them off multiple times, but it's still £800 that I could give to charity or something rather than an incompetent housing association.

You were living in the property and were liable for rent. You failed to pay the rent and accrued substantial arrears. When notified of an error by the Housing Association in  frequency of payment, you seem to have stopped paying the arrears altogether and the total you have paid towards the arrears seems to be £300 (about £2.30 per week) in the, say, two and a half years since they were accrued. You then left the property without giving a forwarding address. These are the facts of the matter and, frankly, while the HA could have handled it better, it's still an outstanding debt that you owe and that's likely to be how a Judge would view it.

County Courts these days often hold hearings online or by telephone (it worked pretty well during the pandemic so many Courts continued with it) so that the chances of having the case transferred to your local County Court are minimal - and if it is heard locally and you're found liable, the HA can apply for costs which could include travel and accommodation.

It's quite possible that you will be ordered to pay; after all, you pay rent in exchange for a property to live in and the HA kept their part of the contract, you did not. You might get lucky with a Judge who is swayed by the lack of response from the HA to your repeated attempts to correspond with them about the arrears. Your claim to have been adversely affected by that would be that much stronger if you had continued making payments toward the arrears but it seems you took it as an opportunity to stop paying what you owed and to then stubbornly refuse to give a forwarding address when you left, forcing the HA to expend resources tracing you to seek payment.

If you're in a position to pay, do so. Or take your chances in Court (online or by phone) and if you're unsuccessful, pay immediately to avoid a County Court judgement which will, for the next 6 years, affect your credit file so the ability to get credit, a mortgage, a new tenancy, a car loan and, in some cases, your career, the latter potentially permanently.

ETA I don't work for a HA although I'm a tenant of one. I have, though, spent the last 30+ years in one Court or another.

I have more than enough to pay them back several times over. They don't know that though, so I'll probably offer them £1 a month.

They'll probably make an error though and put it down as 1p per month.

They're a terribly incompetent bunch who really personify the word 'shambles', so we'll see.

I never gave them my forwarding address because I don't trust them with it. As part of a previous issue I had with them, they sent me a spreadsheet with all of my neighbours phone numbers, details of their communications with the HA and details of their medical conditions.

I think that's a just reason not to give a forwarding address.

A court isn't going to be interested in your issues with the HA Data policies.

You had details to make payment and knew what was outstanding then stopped paying. They will look at the facts presented. Based on what you have said I can't see why a court wouldn't grant in their favour.

Seems a bit pointless to me going all the way to getting a CCJ if you can afford to avoid the hassle of it but each to their own.

A court are extremely unlikely to request you pay such a low repayment amount weekly/monthly when you can afford not to. Likewise the HA could still progress the claim should they choose to

elsien

They made a mistake in collecting the weekly amount monthly. You made a mistake in not checking your bank statements and not noticing. 

You are an annoyed with them because you tried to communicate and didn’t get any response, which is fair enough. But you can’t just unilaterally give them a deadline after which the money is miraculously no longer owing. 

You have the money to pay. If it were me, I would simply pay it and get the matter resolved. I see no point at all in dragging things out by paying a token £1 for a prolonged length of time. It really doesn’t merit the headspace this is taking up. Pay up and move on. Life is too short for these sorts of games.

leamingtonspaceman

fatbelly said:

At the moment the ball is in their court. Policies differ at Housing Associations. My local one  will write off debt more often than trying a court claim. They will however put this with a debt collector first. I think they use UK Search.

If they want to start a court claim on £800 debt it will cost them £70. They have 6 years to start a claim from the 'cause of action' and you restart the clock every time you acknowledge the debt. So if you want not to pay you also need to stop engaging along the lines you have. They will have got the picture by now.

Should they want to start a court claim they must first send a formal preaction letter before claim. You should respond to it like this

https://debtcamel.co.uk/letter-before-claim-ccj/

They are then free to send a court claim to the last known address.

You would want to defend a claim so you may want to let them know your correct address.

Each case then proceeds on its own merits. But the court would only be concerned with whether money was owed, and how much.

In the event of a judgement being issued, you can prevent this appearing on your credit file by paying within one month

Great post. 

Thank you so much for posting information about the procedure and how it works in a concise, factual and objective way.

Really appreciate it.

saajan_12

leamingtonspaceman said:

I was a housing association tenant until recently.

Back in 2022 I had built up a rent arrears of around £1100. My housing association wrote to me about this. I contacted them immediately and a repayment plan was put in place.

I was contacted again in October 2023 to be told the rent arrears had gone down but not by much. I replied to this correspondence but received no reply.

I was contacted again in August 2024, and once again I responded in order to query the correspondence but received no reply.

I was then presented with a hand delivered letter later that August demanding I settle the arrears. I replied to this letter but received no response. The letter stated that they had made a clerical error in 2022 when they set up the direct debit and had requested monthly the amount that should have been taken weekly.

So, I replied again even though I hadn't received a response. I received no reply.

Finally I responded again giving them seven days to reply or the matter would be closed and no arrears due. I received no reply within that time and I wrote to them what I considered to be a final time to confirm that their lack of response had meant that they had missed my deadline. I received no immediate reply.

It wasn't until 38 days later that they wrote to me again, not mentioning any of the previous correspondence and again demanding payment. I responded to this and they didn't respond.

I left the property in March. Because of issues I'd had with them previously I did not leave a forwarding address. My housing manager never mentioned the rent arrears during the handover process.

I received a letter from them on 29th April at my new address, this being SEVEN months after I'd replied to their last letter.

The latest letter made no mention of any of my previous correspondence or any apology for not responding.

I replied and sent them screenshots of all of my previous correspondence that they had ignored including the deadline I gave them that they failed to meet.

They've replied and have said that they want to forget what has happened in the past and move forward and for me to suggest a payment plan.

I've responded again explaining that I have consistently tried to communicate with them regarding the arrears and after multiple attempts they left me no choice than to give them a deadline which they didn't even acknowledge.

I personally find it disrespectful that I would attempt to communicate with them on multiple occasions only for them to completely ignore me.

I believe that it is perfectly reasonable of me to have given them a deadline after multiple attempts to engage with them were ignored.

My feeling based on knowing how my housing association operate is that they will issue court proceedings.

The amount I owe is around £800. 

I would imagine that it would cost them more than that in costs to pursue the matter. I've moved 300 miles away so if it did go to court they would have to travel here and back and so would their solicitor.

Regardless, I did not bury my head in the sand and proactively tried numerous times to engage with my housing association only to be met with silence.

What are my options in this situation?

If this were to go to court, and I provide all the evidence I have of the multiple times I tried to engage with them, what would be the likely outcome?

I'm aware that there can be no definitive answer to this but I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience of being in a similar situation and what the outcome was?

One thing to note is that two years ago the housing association needed access to my property to perform fire safety checks. They failed to attend on three separate occasions, but took me to court for failure to allow access. Despite this, and despite them lying several times in their witness statements saying they had attended when they hadn't, the judge at the hearing was critical of me for refusing access and completely ignored my evidence.

So I am aware that even with overwhelming evidence, judges can simply favour one side over the other despite this.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you...

You talk about several letters to them, but what did the letters say and why is that relevant to just paying the money? There's a legal principle of "de minimis" meaning even if one party made ancillary service failures, this does not affect your liability. Their deadline is 6 years from your initial failure to pay, so your unilateral deadline is irrelevant. That's what the outcome of the court would be, it is pretty definitive. 

The fire safety is no longer relevant. There's no overwhelming evidence that's relevant, if the lease says you have to pay £X and you didn't. If they decide against you, thats not favouring one side, that's ruling on the relevant facts.