{"id":827,"date":"2013-03-19T14:12:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T14:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/?p=827"},"modified":"2013-03-19T14:12:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T14:12:36","slug":"rent-arrears-rise-in-south-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/rent-arrears-rise-in-south-wales.html","title":{"rendered":"Rent Arrears Rise In South Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Rent Arrears Rise In South Wales<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some parts of the UK are currently taking part in pilot schemes to test the government\u2019s new benefits reforms and in one of them at least, the indications are not good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Huge increase in non-payment of rent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Social landlords in Torfaen, South Wales, have seen a seven-fold<br \/>\nincrease in rent arrears since the introduction of the Universal<br \/>\nCredit test scheme. In the existing benefits system, Housing Benefit<br \/>\nis a separate payment normally paid directly to the landlord. Under<br \/>\nthe government\u2019s reforms, Housing Benefit will be rolled up into<br \/>\nUniversal Credit and the whole amount will be paid directly to the<br \/>\ntenant. This puts the onus on to the tenant to pay their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/landlords_property_manager_professional.prod.html\">rent<\/a>, which<br \/>\nin a lot of cases in the pilot area of Torfaen, is simply not<br \/>\nhappening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rent arrears rising<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One social housing landlord in Torfaen, a community housing project<br \/>\nwith more than eight thousand properties on its books, has seen rent<br \/>\narrears rise from \u00a320k to nearly \u00a3140k in the seven months since the<br \/>\nscheme was introduced. Tenants with previously good credit records<br \/>\nare falling into debt because they cannot manage their money. Up<br \/>\nuntil now the number of evictions has remained low, but this will not<br \/>\nbe the case for long.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bedroom tax<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another change on the horizon that is likely to cause havoc in the<br \/>\nsocial housing sector is the so-called \u201cbedroom tax\u201d. If a tenant has<br \/>\na spare bedroom in their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/landlords_property_manager_professional.prod.html\">rented home<\/a>, it will be deemed as<br \/>\nunnecessary, and therefore the housing benefit they receive will be<br \/>\nreduced. This change is designed to reduce the number of under<br \/>\noccupied properties, but it will also lead to a rise in the number of<br \/>\ntenants unable to afford their rent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rent Arrears Rise In South Wales Some parts of the UK are currently taking part in pilot schemes to test the government\u2019s new benefits reforms and in one of them at least, the indications are not good. Huge increase in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/rent-arrears-rise-in-south-wales.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}