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.

Some dreadfully bad and horribly judgemental “advice” here.
Hopefully you have health care professionals working with you, op. You may want to get advice from Shelter re your housing issues. I wouldn’t look for solutions on here; it’s full of people who have no experience of severe mental ill health or who think that because they’ve managed to cope with health problems, everyone else should be able to as well.
Good luck.

@Uppoopcreek as you are also behind with other bills it may be worth speaking to step change which is an organisation which can help with debt.

in regards to housing you do need to get the rent up to date as soon as possible. Currently your landlord could evict you on a section 8 rather than a section 21, and this would be considerably quicker and the council may find that you are intentionally homeless especially if you do nothing to address the issue.

speak to a medical professional asap as well

Hopefully he will be understanding but you'll need to get it paid.

When you wake up this morning, write down a list of everything you have coming in and going out.

Go through the list and get rid of anything non essential that you can for now. Just have bills eg gas and electric, council tax, normal rent payment, water, travel and food on there and cancel anything "extra" that you are not in contract with

Work put how much you can pay your landlord on top of normal rent and ring him with a big apology and payment plan offer ready .

Set up a direct debit for this amount and other essential bills. Have it all coming out the day you get paid so you cant overspend

Show him that you take responsibility and have a way of trying to make up for this

Hopefully he will accept a plan and you can afford some extra to clear the debt. If not, speak to Shelter they are very good

Since you know you have MH and is not to be relied on paying bills you need to have support with that. Talk to social services about getting a support person who comes over regularly to help you check that everything is in order. How are you managing taking care of your children? Are they fed/ tended to? Sorry for asking but you seem to need alot of help.

Rent is usually people biggest outlay. How much is yours?

How could you have not realised an extra (huge) amount still in your bank and spending it

This seems a very strange post.

How on earth did you not realise that you had at least £600pm extra in your account to spend and possibly much more depending on your rent?
A landlord will always contact tenant after first missed payment as from experience it is far easier to sort out one late month with a tenant than let arrears build.
If you have a guarantor then they should have already been contacted - I personally contact guarantors once a payment is a week overdue with no explanation as I find that the intervention of guarantor usually means rent is paid by tenant as guarantor will chase them
If I had a tenant 6 months in arrears then I would have commended eviction proceedings

You’ve really fucked up and can’t make excuses. If I didn’t pay my mortgage - I’d lose my home. I also have disabilities. You sound financially irresponsible. Maybe this is the wake up call you need.

Mental Health is not an “excuse”for poor money management.

It’s an actual REASON !!

Such a lack of understanding in many replies here OP. Good luck this morning x

Good luck OP
Reach out and get some help from CAB or a debt counselling organisation like Christians Against Poverty if there’s a branch in your area.

do you have anything to show for your spending? You must have been on quite the spree if neither rent or other bills were paid. Is there anything you can return/sell/liquidate?

I think OP was trying her luck. She says the house was originally owned by the current landlords son who died tragically. Once dad inherited it he would have been all over the place for those first few months. It's probably only now he has started looking at it more closely and realised OP isn't paying.

Damn. My rent is about 1k I'd deffo notice 6k extra in my bank account. Maybe yours is owned by the council so a lot less? My friends rent is only 400 for a two bed house.

Have you spent the extra money you've accumulated? If not I'd just send it all to the landlord now. Surprised the landlord hasn't noticed

So your landlord has been happily going without rent from you until now? A full 6 months? What a very nice man.

Going forward, PLEASE do a monthly spending plan for yourself. If you are aware of what comes in and what goes out, you will immediately know if something hasn’t been paid. Simply going by what your bank balance says is a dangerous game.

This is a cautionary tale for all of us, both in regards to being a guarantor for a friend or family member, and in regards to having a monthly spending plan.

Good luck, op.

I'm feeling very sorry for your guarantor.

I am a landlord. TBH I would have noticed instantly as I need the money at the end of the month. But, in this situation, I would:
invite you around for a face-to-face meeting to find out the facts, and explain that I needed the money. I'd then try to establish if you were taking the piss, or it was a genuine mistake.
If I thought you were a piss-taker, I'd start to evict you.
If I believed you, I'd ask to go through your finances with you to try and make any helpful suggestions, including looking at Martin Lewis's website. I'd then ask you to put together an affordable, realistic payment plan. I would do this over tea and biscuits in a polite but business-like way.
Good luck.

But if you’re on benefits (presumably a limited income) and you are hundreds of pounds better offeach month than you should be, would that not ring alarm bells?

Didnt the op notice tons of extra stuff she had bought accidentally instead of paying her rent?!?

The bright spark in Government decided that money for rent went to benefit claimant instead of landlord wants shooting.

How much of the money do you have left?

I don't believe you have the extra rent money and just spent it without realising or ever checking your bank account. Even if you just spend willy nilly you must have been spending roughly what was in your account before the rent stopped going out, why would your spending habits suddenly change by 100s a month without realising?

And I'm not sure I believe a problem with the standing order. I don't think standing orders just don't go through for 6 months if the moneys in your accouny

I do think the landlord should have mentioned it before 6 months. They've allowed quite a lot of debt to build up

How do your housing benefits get paid OP? Direct to landlord or to yourself? Do you put money towards your rent and it's that you've spent or have you spent the full amount including housing benefits?

Have you recently switched to universal credit?

@ByQuaintAzureWasp universal credit won't pay rent directly to the landlord unless you are in significant arrears. I asked if I could pay my rent directly to the landlord and that was their answer 😳😳

After 6 months I think OP is in significant arrears.

@ByQuaintAzureWasp totally agree.....but surely she would have realised about the extra money??? Why didn't the landlord get in touch sooner?? 🤔🤔

If he's got multiple properties and seemingly inherited them quite recently he is probably not on top of juggling managing them on top of whatever his actual job is.