Cash-strapped council to write off £400k rent debt
LDRSA cash-strapped council is set to write off more than £400,000 in rent arrears from former tenants.
Gateshead Council is due to discuss a finance report which recommends waiving £419,500 owed by 109 people who rented a home from the authority.
The document said the council had exhausted "all possible recovery action" in those cases, which included those where the tenant had died or been unable to be found after moving.
The Labour-led authority, which earlier this year announced it was set to cut jobs in an attempt to save £10m, said the debt amount involved was "very small" in proportion to what it collected in rent.
A spokesman said: "Our current position shows collection performance at 99.89% of all rent charged."
The authority cannot legally pursue former tenants with a debt older than six years, which represented about £33,400 of the current debt, the Local Democracy Reporting service said.
About £80,000 worth of debt was made up of rent the council could not collect because no forwarding address had been provided, while £45,300 was from now-deceased tenants.
The council report said while the debts would be written off in a strictly financial sense, it did not mean it could not make attempts to reclaim the money at a future date if circumstances changed in each case.
It added if people with debts, even if legally expired, applied for council housing in the future, their application could be demoted or excluded.
The council said it had seen some success with ex-tenants returning to the council and making agreements to pay back such debts this year, totalling £17,000.
The cabinet is due to make a decision on the proposal on Tuesday.
