Missed council rent payments
Legal action
If you do not respond to our reminder letters and you still owe us rent, we will start the legal process to recover the money you owe and end your tenancy.
The legal process starts when we send you a 'Notice of Proceedings for Recovery of Possession'. Before we send you this notice we have to make sure we do certain things:
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Make reasonable efforts to give you help and advice on eligibility for Housing Benefit and other types of financial assistance
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Give you information about sources of help and advice with the management of debt
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Make reasonable efforts to agree with you a reasonable plan for future payments
We will telephone or visit you to discuss this. If we cannot get to speak to you and the you still owe us rent, we will issue the notice.
In this notice, we are warning you that after 28 days we can decide to take you to court to get the court’s permission to evict you.
Before we decide if we are going to take you to court, you will be invited to come in to the office to discuss the situation. If we cannot contact you or you do not attend the meeting we will go ahead and take you to court.
Even after court action has started, it is still possible for you to pay your debt in full or come to an arrangement with us.
After a court summons has been issued, you will also have to pay court expenses as well as the missed rent due. This could add over £100 to the amount of money you owe to us. Don’t ignore the summons.
If you are not sure of what to do, you can ask for advice from your local Citizens Advice Bureau or a solicitor. You can let the Sheriff know that you want to pay the arrears in instalments by filling in part of the summons and sending it back to the court.
In court, we have to prove to the Sheriff that there are missed rent payments and that we have acted reasonably when we made the decision to take you to court.
If you attend the court or have someone else to talk for you, you will have an opportunity to argue your case to the Sheriff. The Sheriff can order you to pay the arrears or give us permission to evict you by granting a Decree.