Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Debt charity Christians Against Poverty has discovered that household bills and costs have tripled in the past ten years. A decade ago, the average client owed £1,412 in priority arrears, a figure representing just nine per cent of that person’s whole debt problem. In 2016, it had ballooned to £4,582, nearly a third (32%) of the whole.
Chief Executive Matt Barlow said: “It’s easy to say that people get into debt because they are thoughtlessly overspending. That view is now not only lacking in compassion, it’s thoroughly out-dated. “
We know the downward spiral most commonly begins with low income and that fragile situation only needs hours to be cut, a relationship to breakdown or even something as mundane as broken washing machine, and that person’s finances are in free fall. “The vast majority of people we see have turned to credit to cover the costs of necessities like council tax, energy bills and rent. A decade ago, the pattern was different, credit was more easily found and living costs weren’t so high.”
The charity today released its client report outlining the facts and figures of its nationwide debt counselling service throughout the past year. Seven in ten (68%) clients fell behind with an essential bill, and for half (47%) this included rent or mortgage payments. By the time they sought help, clients had struggled to meet their basic living needs and had wracked up, on average, more than ten separate debts resulting in multiple companies chasing them for money. Of the clients CAP helped in 2016:
CAP’s latest report can be downloaded here.
