ACTION ON RENT ARREARS

If you are having problems paying your rent, you should let your Housing Officer know as soon as possible. We will discuss with you ways of paying any rent you owe. 
  
If you get behind with your rent you must take positive action to pay off your arrears. You must show us the steps you are taking to stop the arrears increasing and to pay off any rent you owe. We will take early legal action where arrears occur without explanation or good reason. This may involve serving a Notice of our intention to seek possession (NOSP) of your home and taking you to court

We do not tolerate rent arrears.
  
It is very important that you make contact with your Housing Officer when you start running into rent difficulties.

Our Procedure for Dealing with Rent Arrears 

If at any time you are not able to pay your rent on the due date, please contact the office straightaway. We will be happy to discuss any problems with you in the strictest confidence, and will try to help you resolve them. We will also advise you about any benefits you may be entitled to, or help you to get more specialist benefits advice

• If your rent account goes into arrears we will contact you by telephone, home visit or letter. We will ask you what the problem is, and give you any help we can to resolve it.
• You will need to pay the arrears as quickly as possible. If you cannot do this in one payment, we will agree with you an extra amount each week on top of your rent until the arrears are cleared. The actual amount will depend on your household income and how much the arrears are.
• If you break a repayment agreement we have made with you, we will remind you of the agreement and expect you to quickly make good any shortfall.
• If you still fail to keep to the agreement, and do not make and keep to another acceptable arrangement to clear the arrears, we will serve you with a Notice to Seek Possession. This is the first step towards court action to take your tenancy back from you and require you to leave.
• Once we have served you with this Notice, you will have 28 days to clear the arrears in full, or arrange to clear them by regular weekly payments on top of your rent. The amount you must pay will depend on how much rent you owe and your household income.
• If you have not cleared, or significantly reduced, your arrears after 28 days when the Notice expires, we will apply to court for a Possession Order requiring you to leave. The Order we ask the court to grant will normally be “suspended” for a period of time, usually 28 days.
• The purpose of this is to give you a final chance to keep your tenancy by either clearing the arrears in full or by clearing part of the debt and making an acceptable agreement with us to pay the remainder over a number of weeks on top of the rent due.
• Even if you clear your arrears at this stage, we will add the costs of the court action onto the arrears you owe. So it is far better to make and keep to a regular repayment agreement before this late stage.
• For as long as you keep to the terms of a suspended Possession Order, you will not have to leave your home. If you break them we will ask the court bailiff to issue a Warrant for Possession, and you will have to leave
• If this happens, not only will you lose your home, but also your debts will increase even further, as we will add the further legal costs of getting the warrant onto your arrears. You will still owe this money after you have been evicted, and we will still take further legal action to recover the money from you.  

If you are evicted for not paying your rent and become homeless, the Council may regard you as “intentionally homeless”. If so, this would affect your eligibility for rehousing by the Council. You may also find it very difficult in the future to obtain housing from other landlords as a result of being evicted. 

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Manningham Housing Association, a specialist housing association providing accomodation for large families and diverse minority communities in Bradford and Keighley, West Yorkshire, promotes tenant involvement and regeneration of local communities in addition to providing development of new homes and services to meet the housing and support needs for the community.
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