Rent deficit increases among Doncaster council house tenants following three-month freeze

Doncaster mayor Ros Jones announced the option of a three-month rent freeze for those in local authority homes and data reveals that 565 tenants took up the offer since March 22.

St Leger Homes, who operate and look after Doncaster’s council housing stock, said rent arrears and money owed has gone up by around £270,000 to June (end of quarter one).

But the rate of money owed has come down from 3.2 per cent in May to around 3.1 per cent.

Of the 565 tenants, 414 - or 73 per cent - have seen their arrears increase since lockdown.

Since the height of the lockdown, the Tenancy Sustainability team have worked with over 250 additional cases and also achieved over £168,000 of financial recovery.

An increase in lost rent on empty properties was also a significant factor to come from the Covid-19 pandemic during the height of lockdown.

From the end of March, the advertisement cycle and repair works were suspended in line with government guidelines and the number of voids held showed a weekly increase during April and May, until re-letting commenced, housing bosses said.

St Leger chiefs added around 80 to 100 voids are available at any point, but this peaked at 223 at end of May, reduced to 205 at end of June and was 189 in mid-July. Of these, 86 were repaired and ready to be rented out.

Nigel Feirn, head of finance and business assurance at St Leger Homes, said: “Whilst we will continue to make every effort to recover the arrears position following the three month reduction in our activities during lockdown, there remain some restrictions that are outside of our control, such as the ability to take cases to court both to obtain court orders and also to use as a warning or sanction to persistent non-payers.

“We continue to work closely across the Income Management and Tenancy Sustainability Teams to focus on effective support and recovery actions and will continue to provide this in creative ways in the current environment.”

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