Background

Housing Rights Service is aware, through the experience of clients, that financial crisis and debt is an important trigger to homelessness.

We provide a specialist housing debt service to people with mortgage or rent arrears. In 2008 we experienced a 300% increase in demand for this service.

In response to this Housing Rights Service launched the Preventing Possession Initiative in February 2009

Aim of the Project

The aim of the project is to prevent homelessness as a consequence of debt related possession action.  The initiative, which is the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, will adopt a twin track approach.

Providing free advice and representation to people facing the imminent threat of repossession

This element of the project seeks to ensure that homeowners and tenants who are threatened with debt related possession have access to free independent advice, support and representation.  This will be achieved by:

Liaison with key stakeholders to identify ways of improving client accessibility to representation services

Direct provision of an in situ court representation service at the High Court and County Court (work undertaken with  clients would include: negotiation with creditors, court representation, casework /debt counselling)

Working in partnership with other advice providers to develop their capacity to undertake court representation

Engaging in preventative policy work with social housing providers and lenders to reduce the likelihood of people reaching this point of crisis.

A policy team will engage with government, lenders and landlords to reduce the likelihood of possession actions being initiated in the first instance and to ensure that viable housing options are available for those at risk of losing their homes.  The team will work to secure positive changes in the following areas:

• Responsible lending and debt recovery practices
• More options for people threatened with possession

Progress

Through the provision of a dedicated Court Representation Officer in the High Court and Laganside County Court and the development of a range of accredited training courses we've increased access to high quality advice and representation to prevent repossession in Northern Ireland.

In addition to our Court Representation Scheme, we've worked in partnership with social housing providers and not for profit financial insitutions to develop the Tenant Debt Advice Scheme.  This scheme provides a new access route to specialist debt advice and representation for tenants of partner housing associations.

We've been working in partnership with social housing providers and the Department for Social Development to developm and implement guidance on good practice in dealing with rent arrears.

In November 2009, we held a policy seminar on the theme of "Rent Collection and Arrears Management: Sharing good practice and learning".

Our policy team has responded to a number of key consultation documents, all of which can be found in the policy library of this website.

You can read more about the progress the Preventing Possession Initiative is making on our blog.

For further information on the Preventing Possession Initiative contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , policy officer.