Rent arrears management practices in the housing association sector

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Frontline worker/court officer interviews: topic guide 132 1. What is your role and how long have you had that role? 2. What are the circumstances in which tenants are likely to get into rent arrears? Are there any typical scenarios? 3. What sorts of tenants are most at risk of eviction for rent arrears? Are there particular types of tenants that are more likely to be evicted than others? 4. Do you think that tenants’ attitudes towards arrears have changed over the last few years? If yes, in what ways? 5. How (if at all) has the onset of the current recession impacted on rent arrears and the task of arrears management? 6. What are the strengths of your association’s organisational structure for rent arrears management? 7. Are there any disadvantages in the way rent arrears management is organised? 8. In responding to accumulating rent arrears, what – in your association – is the balance between the use of automatic letters and making personal contact? 9. How effective is joint working with the local Housing Benefit section? How easy is it to get information on the HB status of tenants? 10. In what ways could the HB service be improved? 11. Normally, how quickly are HB claims processed? How has HB service performance changed in the recent past? If there have been changes, what has brought these about?
12. How are your tenants helped with HB claims? Do you offer specific help to vulnerable tenants? How do you do this? How is the support provided? 13. Under your association’s procedures, at what point is it considered appropriate to initiate legal action for rent arrears? 14. What have been the most significant recent changes in your organisation’s rent arrears management practice? 15. Do you think that the number of court actions/evictions by your association have risen/fallen or remained stable over the past few years? If the numbers have changed significantly, why is this? 16. Has there been any recent change in the attitude of the courts towards social landlords seeking orders against tenants on grounds of rent arrears? 17. How consistent are the approaches of different judges in relation to rent arrears cases? If attitudes/approaches differ, in what ways? 18. How often does your association make use of Ground 8? What factor/s or scenarios are likely to prompt use of Ground 8? 19. How has the incidence of Ground 8 actions/evictions by your association changed in recent years? 20. In what circumstances is it not appropriate to use Ground 8? – eg in terms of the type of tenancy, the vulnerability of the tenant, the tenant’s Housing Benefit status . 21. How problematic would it be for your association to manage without using Ground 8? What would be the consequences? Rent arrears management practices in the housing association sector 133
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Rent arrears management practices i
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Contents Executive summary . . . .
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Executive summary Introduction This
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Key underlying factors were said to
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could, in part, reflect the growing
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overpayments and suspensions were p
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Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Backgrou
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arrears management and related aspe
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“… there may occasionally be ci
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under Article 8 of the Convention,
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y HAs . 37 The Circular informed as
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Pre-action protocol for possession
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The purpose of these interviews was
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Table 1.1 - Case Study HAs Organisa
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Chapter 2 Rent arrears management p
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Pawson et al’s study found that 9
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2.3 Rent arrears management practic
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this with any certainty . 69 Howeve
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authority can also lead to a lack o
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2.5 The use of Ground 8 Although th
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In the Hunter et al study, 97 which
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some comment on the effect of the P
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• Ground 8 provided certainty to
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There was a difference of opinion a
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3.3 The use of Ground 8 Whereas ans
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do so early enough, or at all . Cla
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Chapter 4 Rent collection and arrea
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4.3 Housing Benefit service perform
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Table 4.3 - Housing association evi
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As shown in Figure 4 .1, CORE data
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were collected for landlords with l
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Most associations report initiating
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5.2 Organisation of rent arrears ma
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Table 5.2 - Primary structure of ar
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Table 5.3 - Recent changes in organ
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Table 5.6 - Staff training provisio
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Within the transfer landlord cohort
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• Where arrears were accrued befo
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Table 5.9 - Estimated percentage of
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elatively high response rate achiev
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The survey sought to collect statis
Page 83 and 84: Ground 8 actions typically accounte
Page 85 and 86: How is the scale of Ground 8 use ch
Page 87 and 88: already routinely exercising the ac
Page 89 and 90: Chapter 6 Case study evidence Chapt
Page 91 and 92: Annex 2 outlines our method, includ
Page 93 and 94: a couple of weeks to three months)
Page 95 and 96: to officers and policies . Officers
Page 97 and 98: RM put it, “caused uproar from te
Page 99 and 100: preferred form of the organisation
Page 101 and 102: tenant contacts are now recorded on
Page 103 and 104: as a result, would make an order un
Page 105 and 106: use - in these cases, it is viewed
Page 107 and 108: g) The tenant perspective In each c
Page 109 and 110: Ground 8 was generally to scrutinis
Page 111 and 112: Ground 8 was said to be used as a
Page 113 and 114: The key stakeholders regarded the P
Page 115 and 116: ule it would not be used where HB w
Page 117 and 118: Table A1.1 - Evicted households by
Page 119 and 120: uncontactable as a result) . Where
Page 121 and 122: Just under half of all cases in the
Page 123 and 124: Annex 2 Case study HA selection Our
Page 125 and 126: Annex 3 Profile of case study housi
Page 127 and 128: However, after a review across its
Page 129 and 130: as developing joint working with th
Page 131 and 132: Annex 4 Case study topic guides HA
Page 133: 19. What has been your recent exper
Page 137 and 138: 9. If RSLs rely on Ground 8, what i
Page 139 and 140: 4 Tenant employment circumstances (
Page 141 and 142: 10 Value (£) of arrears at defined
Page 143 and 144: Our offices Maple House 149 Tottenh
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