Our client research shows that, among those who do get into arrears on their rent, the likelihood of an affordable repayment plan to clear the arrears is lower for private sector tenants than for those renting from social landlords. Only a third were asked about their income and expenditure by their landlord when seeking an arrears repayment plan, suggesting that affordability considerations were taken into account by only a minority of landlords.
It’s helpful that the guidance to the new act encourages landlords to adopt an affordability approach, but this would be strengthened by the introduction of a pre-action protocol for private landlords based on the existing protocol for social tenants, which would put more emphasis…