Former Tenant Arrears Recovery
Sensitive Former Tenant Arrears Recovery & Trace
Summary
A leading housing association in northeast England partnered with Controlaccount to tackle rising tenant arrears while reducing pressure on internal teams. By combining ethical debt recovery practices with data-driven processes and tailored tenant support, the approach improved collection rates, minimized legal action, and delivered better outcomes for both the organisation and its residents.
The Organisation
Our client is one of the largest housing associations in the northeast of England, providing low-cost homes for more than 18,000 families.
Cases referred
1,736
A blend of trace and collect and standalone recovery accounts
The Challenge
In addition to the recovery of former tenant arrears and sundry debts (repairs, housing benefit overpayments and court costs), this housing association was also looking to reduce the pressure on internal administration departments.
As the debt profile included some aged debt, connectionhad been lost with previous tenants and this had previously prevented successful collection of accounts.
Success Rate to Date
28%
A strong recovery performance for highly aged, complex former tenant arrears
The difference made:
Following a thorough tender process, Controlaccount was awarded the contract to provide standard debt recovery and standalone trace services.
The Association is committed to avoiding any eviction and looked to Controlaccount to offer arrangements to support tenants, alongside successful recoveries. Although the client had initially requested a field service as part of recovery, we illustrated - through a pilot scheme - that litigation provided a greater level of successful outcome than doorstep recoveries.
Our legal offering was then built into our client workflow if a propensity to pay had been established through our own Debt Assessment Processes (DAP). In addition to improving recoveries, we have successfully streamlined the client’s collection process, with a significant number of individuals who are financially vulnerable being supported via payment plans.
This contract has been renewed in 2020, 2023 and 2026
Controlaccount also provided:
- A soft lettering approach and SMS messaging
- Data cleansing and trace services
- Monthly and weekly reporting and analysis across individual accounts, debt type and overall performance
- A technology driven service for all parties including online payment and query channels for subjects through ControlMyAccount and client management and reporting through our ClientWeb portal
What they said
We see any eviction as a failure so we were keen that our debt recovery partner could strike a balance between meeting our commercial goals in parallel with delivering an ethical and fair debt recovery service which would support our tenants.
We have been extremely satisfied with the collection, trace and client services performance, particularly the DAP services which allows us to avoid costly legal proceedings when our tenant is unlikely to settle. - Income Recovery Manager
Our accreditations
