Debt to Housing Association

[hilary.denni]

My daughter owes £288 to a housing association for clearing a property she has vacated. She has offered to pay them £5 per month as she is on benefits and this is the only spare money she has each week and has provided them with a breakdown of income/expenditure showing this. They are refusing to accept her offer and say they will only accept £14 per month, which she can't afford, or they will take it to Court. Does anyone know what the Court outcome would be? Thanks for any help.

[lyall]

The court will assess how much she can afford by taking into account her incomings and outgoings and then set a figure, that figure will have to be what she pays, unless she appeals it. As she has offered to pay some money every month it should look good for her. But be aware the courts are fickle places; they may say she could afford more than the £14! As one benefit claimant to another I would rather eat a little less OR drink a little less OR smoke a little less OR party a little less OR shop a little less OR sit in the dark a bit more OR put a jumper on instead of turning up the heating anything to get my debt paid off rather than have it hanging over my head.

[RATTER15]

Tell your daughter to stick to £5 a month if that is genuinely all she can afford, it is very unlikely they would take her to court, the court may actually reduce the amount she pays each month so they won't want to take the risk. Tell her to start paying immediately no matter what they say. Also she should make her offer to them in writing.

[factor-fiction]

i agree with lyall. The court will decide and it's quite likely they'll accept her figure. But there is a risk that if they really dig into the figures they will feel that more can be afforded. It isn't a nice position to be in but maybe sometimes one needs to go a few weeks living very frugally in order to relieve the debt worries a little.
I feel a bit sorry though for the housing association as the administration costs of processing £5 a month mean that it'll take many years before they get their money back, and similar problems probably arise with quite a number of their other debtors, some of whom will never repay the debt

[hilary.denni]

Thank you for all your replies. She is going to start paying £5 per month, then in a couple of months, as her other debts are paid off, she will pay more, which is what she offered to do in her letter to them, which they rejected. Hopefully this will keep them happy for now :-)

[merejeans]

Why couldb't she have cleared out the house herself, then she would have avoided having to pay anything back!

[Hopkirk]

I was thinking that too

[dotty.]

i thought it was only private rented accomodation when you had to pay a bond that would charge for this sort of thing, isn't a final clean up factored into the rent anyway?

[themas]

If they take her to Court she will get a form to complete showing her income & expenditure, & the amount she is offering; it also shows details of other debts & what she is paying them. If she is paying them a lot more on a pro-rata basis then it is likely her £5 offer will be rejected. She should really work out the total amount she owes to all her creditors, the total amount she can afford to pay each month & pay each of them a pro-rata amount.

Also, she will end up paying the Court fee & other costs - which will increase the debt considerably - & have a County Court Judgement on her credit record, which will mess up her credit rating for 6 years even if she does pay the debt off.

If she can possibly manage it, much better to offer something they can accept.

[encee]

isn't it the case that providing she makes an offer which she thinks is reasonable they have to accept it.i think the court would be too costly surely for the housing association

[RATTER15]

Encee, that's why I wrote what I did, I doubt very much the court would increase that amount, they wouldn't even take it to court!

[themas]

encee - no, they don't HAVE to accept it. The creditor can refuse to accept any offer & go to Court if they wish.

This is a matter of how much risk hilary's daughter is willing to take. My post was simply pointing out that there are risks if she sticks to her £5 offer. The risks are likely to be greater if she is paying a lot more (on a pro-rata basis) on her other debts.