Haven’t paid rent in months!

You must have 1000s in your account if you have not paid bills in 4 months! Go ahead and do the right thing! Your landlord has to pay mortgage, insurance, tax, maintenance, leasehold charges etc.

Right, completely understand not looking and tapping until the card stops working. I'm sure most people here can empathise with that regardless of whether or not they've experienced it themselves.

What people are struggling with is how someone - on the breadline due to COL - would be able to tap the card to the tune of an extra £600, £800, £1000 or whatever per month, for six months, without noticing a presumably massive increase in available funds.

If OP was single with no dependants, fine, whatever, their problem. But this is their three kids home, with a guarantor (presumably friend or family) now on the hook for a potentially life-changing amount of money.

And I'm not about to lose sleep over a career landlord losing money, but OP says their landlord has inherited this property following the death of their son. What a mess to have fallen into their life at such a tragic time, and one that could have serious financial implications for them too.

Completely understand the mental health side of things too, but it's not a get out of jail free card, especially when there are so many dominos with the potential to fall here.

Ten quid a month?

They will probably just turn to the guarantors in that case.

Your post reads as if the landlord has only two options - accept what the OP offers or get nothing. But the landlord also has the guarantor who is liable for the rent.

Congratulations

Late last year i was struggling with bills/debts and ended up owing money in rent like you, I owed around £1000 I was able to clear some of it but it was too late and the HA ended up taking me to court. There was a risk they could evict me and I have two young children. The court costs were £350 too so I ended up owing that as well. I rang the HA and made a plan with them, I now pay back £10 a week extra on top of the normal rent I was anxious to call them but now there’s a plan in place I felt so much better. I think your landlord would really appreciate communication and then you can come up with a solution ignoring it always makes the situation worse. The debt is there now, you just have to find a plan that works for you. Good luck

@@Uppoopcreek

Oh God you sound like me! I also bury my head in the sand.

@Squirrelz5 You sound like a lovely tenant, mine couldn’t even clean, forget decorating!

Love Monzo! It’s the only card I use now

@saltinesandcoffeecups my first thought too I'm afraid

I bloody love my landlord. Despite being very busy and owning lots of properties, he's been wonderful. Has kept rent the same for 2 years. Only ever increased by 2% in the past. Lets me decorate. Fixes things immediately. I have afro hair and so does his wife, we had a chat about how the hard water in the area damages our hair - when my boiler broke he fitted a water softener with the new one. He fixes cosmetic things like peeling paint in corners and replaced the wood on the windows when he did an inspection and felt the draft coming through them. I've lucked out!

Op I won't judge you as you've obviously got problems but please to miss rent like this and not realise suggests to me that you desperately need help for your mental health.

@StevieNic not all landlords are a leech, I have been good to my tenant, fixed issues as soon as they are reported, didn’t increase the rent for years and ensured the standard of the property is one I would want to live in.

The tenant has been a nightmare, hasn’t cleaned the house in months, things have been left broken after she left and she’s damaged the brand new carpet we put in.

People are quick to point the finger at landlords but look at the tenants, how anyone can forget to pay their rent is beyond me.

God your poor guarantor - and kids!

You need to scrimp together this money however you can. Can you get a loan from the bank or CU? Rent cannot be so cheap for a whole house that you didn’t notice you had several hundred pounds or even over a thousand extra every month?! If cost of living was crippling you so much you’d know where every penny was going and realise you had money left over.

Sorry not read the replies.

Its very easy to bury your head in the sand and ignore this problem, but that will only make it worse.

Write down all of the bills you owe and then ring them up and set up a repayment plan through direct debit.
Explain your situation and ask if they have any hardship funds or anyway to make your bills cheaper.

Explain that you can only do say £10 a month for now (work out what you can afford for each) but that you can pay more when your circumstances change (even if they’re not going to).

Look into discretionary housing payment from your local authority to clear some of your rent debt.

Say to your LL that you will get your UC payments sent directly to him.
This is what I had to do and then I pay £50 a month myself on top to clear my rent arrears. I was only behind on rent so could afford £50 but if you can’t afford that then say less.

They’d rather you pay something than nothing.

Contact the council this morning and ask about discretionary housing payment. It’s not guaranteed but used for circumstances like this. Speak to your landlord and explain, get the conversation out of the way, don’t avoid it, you will feel better when this is all out in the open and you’re working towards a solution.

Yep. Im sorry but I struggle to believe you didn’t realise either, OP.

It’s slightly frustrating to see so many people suggest housing hardship funds and so on - who is ultimately paying for that, whilst OP has spent the money, the taxpayer? (Genuine question).

I say this as a ND person with history of depression and anxiety.

In an odd coincidence, I made a similar discovery this morning. Not for 6 months rent, but 2. The change coincided with a change in other circumstances that meant less money was coming in and I didn't pick up on it.

In my case, I noticed and alerted the landlord first thing. I was able to pay one month of arrears as well as November rent, and create a payment plan for the rest. But it still feels awful and shocking, even though my landlord was willing to work with me to sort it out.

Hope you managed to sleep a bit last night OP. Maybe this morning, make a list: go through statements to see what went wrong, apply for the housing loan (I can't remember what it is called), see if it is possible for UC or housing benefit to be paid directly to LL, and see about getting some help with budgeting...and then speak to LL when you have a better idea of what happened and how you can move forward. Good luck x

I never check my rent had been paid tbf,
I just assume it has been (standing order) but I do check my balance. Not paying any attention at all to your finances is extremely risky and if you have MH issues the last thing you need is extra stress surely?

A landlord expecting to be paid his rent is a “leech”? Really?!

That said ring your LL offer a payment plan, the months rent + whatever you can afford to stop them taking it from your grauntor.

Sorry op but you'd of known it wasn't being paid by having "extra" money to spend.

I’m sorry @Uppoopcreek I don’t think the judgements are deserved. I’m…eh very financially astute have a high level role in financial services and I did something similar (it was 3 months before my landlord contacted me) admittedly my circumstances are quite different I had plenty of money, hence not regularly checking. But lots of people make mistakes and find managing finances difficult, so please don’t see this as some sort of moral failing. You need to come up with a way of managing things going forward. Perhaps asking a friend or their are charities who could help you go through finances and get into good habits.

I'm sorry, OP, but you didn't 'magically' have lots of extra money to spend every month, you knew something wasn't getting paid as it should.