More tenants are struggling to pay their rent, letting agents report

Letting agents are reporting seeing a rise in the number of tenants struggling to pay their rent as unemployment rises, research showed today.

Around 65% of agents said they had seen an increase in the number of people falling behind with their rent in the past six months.

A further 93% said they had also seen a rise in the number of tenants haggling with landlords about rent since the beginning of the year, according to the Association of Residential Letting Agents (Arla).

The group, which questioned 730 letting agents, said this trend was not just being caused by tenants experiencing financial problems, but was also likely to be due to people trying to cash in on falling rents due to an oversupply of properties available to let.

Ian Potter, operations manager of Arla, said: "Tenants who have become unemployed and applied for Local Housing Allowance will automatically fall into the late payment category, as the benefit is unhelpfully paid monthly in arrears when rents are due in advance.

"There's been a lot of talk about the Homeowner Mortgage Support scheme of late but as far as I can see, tenants are being forgotten completely. That's inexcusable in a climate such as this."

Sam Younger, chief executive of Shelter, said: "As unemployment rises and the recession begins to bite, more and more people across the country are struggling with their housing costs.

"While we welcome the raft of initiatives the Government has introduced to protect homeowners in mortgage arrears, Shelter would like to see further attention given to supporting tenants who are finding it just as difficult to make ends meet."