Rent arrears

[Helpmegee]

i live in Scotland and have had a notice of proceedings for rent arrears with my housing association.
has anyone been able to sort this without being evicted?
I owe £3k because I have been struggling with lots going wrong and uc credit messing about with my childcare costs being approved resulting in non payment from them.

if I were to try and pay as much as I can over the next 4 weeks could this change anything?

The more you can demonstrate you can pay your debts down the better your chances, I suppose at this point you can’t know how serious they are.

Have you spoken to your HA to arrange a repayment plan?

I would also recommend speaking to Shelter for some advice.

So I agreed a payment plan however they issued the notice to my door the day I got paid and I had made the payment to them before I arrived home from work to the notice.

I intend to pay £300 on top of my rent as I have just finished repaying something else and cancelled my subscriptions to Netflix etc to free up a bit more money so hoping when I call them tomorrow they will be able to discuss this

If you have an agreed payment plan and have started making payments I’m not sure why they’ve served notice.

Hope the call goes well and it gets cleared up.

I’m not fully up to date with Scottish legal proceedings, but generally:

1. if you agree to and keep to a payment plan even if court action follows, judge would agree with payment plan and make it a condition on no further action. So if you keep to the plan there is no further legal action but if you don’t the HA could return to court for possession of property.
2. its possible HA want the judge to formalise this plan if you are a chaotic payer, have made plans and then not paid or if you have not kept good contact with them or the arrears are just high enough to warrant this.
3. the HA will have a policy to follow with rent arrears, at a certain level having it formalised by a judge means if you stop they have recourse back to court as opposed to having to start the process again (and them incurring more arrears)

you should be fine as long as to agree to and keep to the plan. Ensure it is sustainable and you can pay other bills too.

do attend court if you get a date,

If you clear the arrears then court date would be cancelled, but with a notice they can apply again if required within 1 year (in England)

better to agree a reasonable repayment and stick to it

If you clear your arrears the HA may withdraw the claim, but they don't have to as the cost of the claim then sits on them. So they are unlikely to do this.

It may be the HA agrees to a possession order, but suspends it on terms you pay X amount per month or they agree to adjourn it generally with liberty to restore if you don't pay the debt and keep paying your rent. If you get a suspended order and don't keep to it, the HA can apply for the eviction as you breach the court order.

If it does go to court, costs will be awarded against you. Not sure what they are in Scotland but in England it's just under £400.