FOI request (FOIR-413124718)

Rent Arrears

Requested Mon 04 April 2022
Responded Wed 04 May 2022

I am writing with request regarding your rent arrears figures as end of 2021-2022 financial year expressed as a figure and percentage over annual rental charge - I hope you could assist me with this query which I intend to use for our end of year benchmarking. I am happy to exchange the figures.

Response

Due to the times specified for April 2021 to March 2022 we have 35 Social Lettings Agency (SLA) properties with no rent arrears.

Only one tenant has had rent arrears in that period. However the rent arrears occurred from previous years brought forward in rental statement.  The rent owed for 2021 to 2022 has been paid in full.

Most of our SLA tenants are on Housing Benefit and therefore the rent is paid directly to us. This reduces rent arrears. However some households that work do need to pay a top up and if there is a change of their circumstances this can also affect the rental amounts.

All of our rents are affordable and therefore the rent arrears themselves are low in comparison to other rents in the area.

We always work out an affordable repayment plan to cover any arrears.

We must point out this is properties that we have leased from private landlords and is not Housing Association Properties.

We also own a few temporary accommodation properties, but again Housing Benefit is paid direct to us.

Most of the social housing in the borough is owned and managed by Registered Providers, the 2 main ones are Orbit and Optivo. We do not hold information on rent arrears for those properties.