UK Tenants Are Deeply Indebted

Latest BBC report suggests that tenants in the United Kingdom find themselves as indebted as they were in 1980’s. The news is especially bad for residential landlords, who already face problems when collecting rent payments and managing rental arrears. Statistics demonstrates that currently 1/3, or 30%, of all residential landlords across the United Kingdom have at least one tenant in arrears. For instance, Rukhsana Kashmiri, a landlord from North London gave an interview to BBC, in which she confirmed that she has 2 tenants in arrears, who are unable to make their monthly rent payments. Both tenants have lost their jobs, which led to the fact that they ended up, collectively owing Kashmiri £9,000. The arrears caused Kashmiri to deal with a high stress, which in its turn resulted in medical help and a need to take anti-depressants and pain killers. Although the rapidly growing levels of unemployment are the main reason behind rental arrears, some specialists believe that housing benefit, issued by the government, also has something to do with payment problems. Previously, the benefit could be sent directly to the landlord; however, now authorities prefer to send the housing benefit to the tenant, who later hands it over to the landlord. Moreover, delays of 2 and more months before the benefit payment has been made by the authorities have been reported. Adam Sampson, who heads a charity organization focused on housing issues, claimed that government officials can play a major role in the current situation by solving the problem of payment of housing benefits.