Sharp rise recorded in landlords seeking to recover rental debt
The number of landlords seeking to recover lost rent has soared according to eviction and housing law specialists, Landlord Action, who have seen a sharp rise in landlords requesting to use their debt recovery service.
Instructions for the last year, April 2021 to March 2022, were up 180% compared to the pre-pandemic year, April 2019 to March 2020.
With an estimated 13 million people in the UK renting from a private landlord, this suggests approximately 52,000 were in rent arrears between 2020 and 2021.
The tenant’s financial situation is tricky to navigate, especially if they have fallen into arrears because of the recent pandemic. However, landlords and letting agents have found that some tenants used the restrictions placed on landlords over the last two years to avoid paying their rent, even when they had the means to do so.
Landlord Action highlight that the restrictions also mean that the value of rent arrears is now higher than ever. Whereas in the past there was a tendency for some landlords to seek possession but write arrears off as a bad experience, under the assumption that recovering the debt would be too difficult, many landlords can no longer afford to write off such large sums of money.