Two hundred thousand Scots missed a rent or mortgage payment in the last 12 months according to Citizens Advice Scotland.
That’s a shocking new fact from an organisation at the frontline of trying to help people cope with the rising cost of their food, heating and well, pretty much everything, thanks to inflation.
The same bit of research declared that 36% of us run out of money before payday.
And that’s all before the winter that lies ahead of us.
There’s been plenty of coverage of rising energy costs and a good bit about the rising costs of food too. But in my book, not nearly enough attention given to rising housing costs.
This week the Scottish Government took decisive action and introduced an emergency bill to freeze rents and to ban evictions for the winter.
In three days they’ll pass a piece of legislation that normally takes nine months.
Housing cost crisis hitting tenants and landlords alike
Evictions were banned like this before, specifically during the pandemic and that worked pretty effectively.
It makes a lot of sense that as a health pandemic is replaced by a poverty pandemic, the same level of drastic action is taken to protect tenants.
The rent freeze is welcome too, but a bit more of a mixed bag.
For starters it applies to both social and private rented sector tenants.
For those in social housing, via a housing association or council, it’s not a massive bit of comfort.
Their rents already went up early this year in the spring and weren’t expected to do so again until next spring. So there’s no immediate saving there.
It’s a different story for private landlords though, who will now find that they can’t hike tenants’ rents or indeed turf them out if they can’t pay.
Organisations representing landlords are up in arms and are expected to challenge the legislation as early as Friday in the courts.
It’s not yet clear whether such a move would stop the rent freeze coming into place or not.
There’s a lot of uncertainty ahead in that regard.
But what of those people who own their own homes?
Mortgage more prison than privilege
Mortgage rates are now hitting 6%, which is twice what they were a month ago.
That’s bad enough but what’s more worrying is what is referred to as the mortgage burden.
That’s the percentage of our income that we spend on our mortgage and it’s soaring.
As of today it stands at upwards of 26%.
That’s the highest it’s been since the late ’80s and if you remember those heady days, you’ll know it preceded the biggest housing crash in modern history.
You’ll have seen a lot of charts in the past few weeks.
But this one REALLY matters.
The mortgage burden – the % we spend on our repayments – is heading for the highest level since the late 80s.
Last time it hit these levels it preceded the biggest housing crash in modern history pic.twitter.com/6gVHXpXxi0— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) October 5, 2022
Could that be around the corner once again?
Hundreds of thousands of people defaulting on their mortgage because they just can’t make ends meet?
It doesn’t appear to matter whether you are a house owner or a renter, the vast majority of people in the country are really feeling the bricks and mortar surrounding them towering in over their heads.
People paying price for PM’s incompetence
Citizens Advice had already seen a 25% increase in the number of people reading their webpage “What do you do if you can’t pay your mortgage?” back in August.
That was long before Liz Truss’s government spooked the markets, crashed pension funds and forced the Bank of England to buy up loan debt in order to stabilise the economy.
This is an entirely self-inflicted wound on the UK economy, caused by a cavalier and out of touch government with agenda no one voted for.
But we’re the ones who are all paying the price.
The rage is real.
Meanwhile, if you are one of those people struggling just now, please do take some time to see how organisations like Citizens Advice can help you.
They also have a brilliant tool called moneymap.scot which you can use to ensure you’re getting all the support you’re entitled to.
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