Haven’t paid rent in months!

[Uppoopcreek]

I’ve just realised I haven’t paid my rent in around 6 months! I don’t know how this could have happened?
ive lived here around 4 years. All I can think is I set up a standing order a while ago and it didn’t work properly?
now, I have pretty severe MH problems. Awful anxiety and depression(probable ADHD but still waiting for an appointment to start the process). I never check my bank, I’m behind with other bills, too. I’m a bury my head in the sand type of person, but worry constantly about everything, About a month ago I hit rock bottom. Won’t go into details, but it wasn’t great.
I have 3 DC, and I’m on benefits.
Help! What do I do?! Had a text from landlord last night asking me to call him, which is what’s just prompted me to look now. I was asleep when he text.

Be honest with your landlord. State that you love living there and wish to remain. Could you pay him back an extra £50 a month until the debt has been repaid?
This is what my tenant did, she took on extra hours so her benefits were reduced reducing her over all income (madness) and panicked.
Your landlord doesn't sound like a soul-eating monster so may well agree to a gradual repayment scheme.
Changing tenants would cost him a lot!

Speak to your landlord and try and set up some kind of plan and ask your LL if he agrees that UC can send the money straight to him. If he agrees, call UC and get them to do just that. They can pay it straight to the LL.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

You must make paying back your rent a priority.

You will have to go without until you have done so.

Contact these people -

https://www.stepchange.org/?gadsource=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD1toAhQDY80BMCJy4mIx5CCVCh8H&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsoe5BhDiARIsAOXVoUt2HiJDJKgaIRXB8FraXGL0spDVH1orarlxnYfjUy0lh0WI6EHltOsaAvdeEALwwcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

I've previously been a landlord to a few properties and I would be furious at your giving mental health reasons as an excuse. There is never an excuse to get out of paying what you owe and I don't want to know about people's personal problems when it comes to financial agreements.

Work on going forward and present the landlord with what you will be paying to help redress the debt.

Good luck.

Sending you Strength and solidarity for the call in the morning.

I understand burying your head in the sand but you don't have a choice now. Hoping for a ghost positive workable outcome.

Very saddened to read the many judgy/questioning/doubting comments on this thread. There's some really fucking horrible people in this place. I hope the op has the strength to ignore the vitriol. Nasty nasty people.

Just a reminder - if you don't have anything nice to say, it's ok to walk in past. You don't have to stick the boot in.

The supportive comments are of course lovely so hope to see more of those.

@CreamLampshade Your conditions aren't severe enough to be unable to work.

Be grateful.

I'm surprised you as behind on your other bills if you haven't been paying rent. What did you spend the money on if not rent or bills?
As others have said get on the phone later today. Call your landlord and local council, I also don't know if somewhere like Shelter would be able to help if the landlord evicts you.
First off call your landlord and just see what he says.

Work out a payment plan, rent is bound to be £800+. Per Month, part of that is bound to be paid by benefits- didn't you realise you were spending more?

Did you read any of OPs opening? People in a similar situation often struggle to mamage finances.

How exactly did you realize that you haven’t paid rent for 6 months? I’m just wondering if there is any chance there is a mix up, and you have actually been paying (since you didn’t notice or accumulate extra money).

if you definitely haven’t paid, where did the rent money go? Have you been paying the wrong person? Possibly you could get some of it back if so.

That's a lot of money over a lot of time. I used to hide away from debts and not check my account balance because I was sinking. No good come from that and every penny had to be paid back - and more on fees! The best thing you can do is talk to step change, let them know what the situation is and take their advice. They will help you manage the process of getting the debt down and how to communicate that with your landlord. To be fair he doesn't sound like an unreasonable person so all is most definitely not lost. I know your mental health isn't great but you really must face up to this situation and make sure you get a better handle on finances going forward.

you need to wake up to the issue op
get some support from Step Change

I agree with the previous advice about suggesting a payment plan, contacting Stepchange and the CAB but, if you think something may have gone wrong with a standing order, you should also contact your bank. Do
you have some kind of evidence that you set up the standing order, such as an email? Or do
you have some sort of record of when you set it up such as an itemised phone bill showing the call? Even if you don’t have these, contact your bank and, if they say you have a standing order and, for some reason, they have not been paying it the surely they should cover your arrears.

I can't see how you didn't reliese you hadn't been paying your rent of anything 500/1000 depending where you live in the country

Yet don't have the money now

What on Earth have you spent it on / that's £3/6k

I can understand not checking the bank account but if the money isn't there you must have done some serious spending in the last 6mths

Please tell your guaranter - they will be liable for the back payment if the landlord really wants to get their money

And likely to cause then financial issues

Equally the landlord has been lapse not contacting you after the first missed payment

Good luck

Not everyone lives in the south. My rent is £390 a month. I pay £100 a week because I like to pay ahead in case anything goes wrong.

OP if your LL hasn't noticed for six months he is clearly not in desperate need of the money and will probably accept a payment plan over the expense of having to evict you and find new tenants. Call him ASAP, be honest and apologise, and offer to pay what you can afford extra on top of your monthly rent. Be careful not to offer more than you can afford, otherwise, you'll end up in this mess again in a few months.

You need to get on top of this TODAY. I’ve been there and sticking your head in the sand doesn’t work.
First step is to work out where all your money is going, then next step is to work out a budget.
You need to speak to your landlord but any payment arrangement must be manageable. You also need to let your guarantor know before they get a letter from your landlord as well. Is this person you trust to help you go through your finances?

Nobody just 'spends' extra money that hasn't been there before, they question why they have more money than they thought.
You also are happy to suggest lying to the landlord as an excuse for not paying what was owed to him?
Morals?

The bank is absolutely not responsible for her standing order not going out, please don’t give advice that gets her hopes up! The only way the bank would be responsible is if it was going out but they had input the wrong account details (a mistake against what she had given).

I can completely see how this is done actually - people are assuming you’re going out and buying a couple of big purchases for a couple of hundred but what is more likely is that it’s a small accumulation. There was a thread about this the other day. You go to the park and buy a hot chocolate; you go for a walk and have to pay for parking, you take the children to soft play and buy lunch. Nip to the co op and get a couple of things for dinner, drive to a new park and a bit more on petrol. It’s those sort of things.

When you have no money you don’t check your banking apps because they just tell you what you already know: you have no money. It’s when you have money, even if not much, you keep an eye on it.

They do.

I have never forgotten that when I was at university I went home for a few days over Christmas and when I returned I realised I’d left my debit card at home. I ordered a new one but decided to use the credit card I’d never used before in that time and managed to spend nearly £200 in a few days! And that was a LOT given it was 2002! (I mostly used cash before that at a time when you could use cash.)

Not in my experience. When you have no money and col is crippling you. You dont get a hot chocolate at the park, you dont pay for parking or lunch at soft play and you check your balance before doing the food shop then go round the shop with your calculator to make sure you don't spend more than you have to avoid the embarrassment of having to put things back at the till.

Personally, I'd put a roof over my children's heads above morals but maybe that is just me.

I don't think lying to the LL is a good idea, simply because the bank making a mistake for 6 months is not believable, nor do I think berating OP is helpful.

When you're on a low income checking your bank is hard. I try my best not to check mine atm. I despise transferring people money because it means logging into my bank and checking how much money I don't have.

Couple poverty with mental health issues and you've a potential recipe for disaster. OP knows she has fucked up, she doesn't need MN kicking her while she is down.

OP, in some circumstances you can get the rent element of UC paid directly to your LL. I would look into this and discuss with the LL this is your plan so you both know this can never happen again. Then you just need to work out how much of a top-up you can afford to pay each week/month and what the best way to pay is (bank transfer, standing order, cash dropped off through his door etc)

Sorry but sounds like a load of BS to me.

Why did your landlord ringing you prompt you to check your bank account?

Presumably your rent is one of if not your biggest bill, how did you not notice all that extra money being available in your account to spend and whilst you say you haven't checked your account surely you noticed that you had a lot of extra money and your card wasn't being declined.

Anyway, this isn't going to go away.

1. go through your account and see how much of the money you have left
2. speak to your landlord see if they will accept a lump sum
3. Speak to your guarantor because they are now going to have to pay the balance.

But that is not the same. If you have a monthly budget and you are left with £1.50 at the end of wach month, and suddenly you have £151.50 at the end of the month, you would wonder where the 'extra' £150 was from. If iit went on for longer than a month, it would require some investigation
Suddenly discovering you can spend 'freely' on a credit card is usually a one-off experience!

Poor advice.

@Uppoopcreek Ive opened a Monzo account, it’s been a life changer. It predicts all your bills from one pay day to the next, estimates how much you will have left over. You can open pots to allocate money for different things (food shop pot, Christmas savings etc) so can keep track of what money is going where. Start today and it will be hard to start with but once into the swing of it, it’s life changing.