Rent

You should let us know straightaway if you’re having problems paying your rent and:

• you’ve received a letter about your rent arrears
• you’ve received a Notice of Seeking Possession, Notice to Quit or Notice to Terminate
• we’ve started legal proceedings 
• we’ve started eviction action

Contact us to set up a payment plan.

If you do not pay or contact us we’ll ask you to come in for an appointment.

You’ll need to explain why you did not pay. 

We’ll look at what help you may need, for example, by arranging to pay in instalments. 

If you still do not pay or stick to your payment plan, we’ll take legal action. 

We may ask the court for an order to repossess your home. 

If we evict you, we will not rehouse you and you’ll still owe your rent arrears, plus our legal costs.

To have your say on rent matters consider joining a tenants and homeowners forum or a local housing forum.

Help you can get.

If you’re no longer a Southwark tenant

If you’re no longer a Southwark tenant but still owe rent from your old address, we’ll need to collect the debt.

The debt will be passed to Southwark Income Enforcement Services for collection.

If you cannot pay in full, you can make a payment arrangement.

If your home's too big for you

If you can’t afford your rent because your home's too big for you, we may be able to help.

Our Smart Move scheme helps with the cost of moving to a smaller home in Southwark.

Moving to a smaller property means you’ll pay lower rent and bills.

If an organisation is representing you, we’ll need you to give us consent to share your rent information.

Organisations representing tenants can contact us online.

If you can’t make a payment arrangement or if you make an arrangement but then don’t pay, we'll take further action to collect the money you owe. 

We’ll try to recover what you owe: 

• through your salary net earnings where your employer sends us a percentage of what you earn (an Attachment of Earnings order)
• through a deduction from your benefits

If this does not work, we'll ask enforcement agents to collect what you owe.

We can also ask the court to force your home to be sold to pay off what you owe. This is called a Charging Order and an Order for Sale. You’ll need to pay substantial legal costs.