Southwark Council has taken the decision to write off £2.68 million of rental arrears owed to it, some of which have been left for as long as 13 years, and some individual
debts up to almost £20,000.

Analysis of the data shows that 80% of it is being written off either due to falling foul of the “statute of limitations rule”, that is to say debt cannot be collected if
it is more than 6 years old, or because there is “no trace” of the debtor.

The Southwark Liberal Democrats responded by demanding that the decision be called in for closer scrutiny, to understand how the debt has ballooned to this size. Despite this,
the Labour council have refused the call-in request.

The Liberal Democrats say that the fact that it reached this level with so much simply being written off due to time, is a damning indictment of a failing council.

This comes after a number of residents were recently sent letters in error claiming that they were in arrears of hundreds of pounds, when they were fully up to date. The Liberal
Democrats say that this is evidence that the system is broken.

Commenting, Southwark Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Victor Chamberlain said:

“£2.6 million in rental arrears is an extraordinary amount of money to write off. This isn’t about chasing people struggling to pay, but how the council can work better with
people struggling to pay rent to manage the debt properly.

With council finances on a knife edge, we cannot afford to let this happen again, and we are demanding answers with our call-in request.

Once again mismanagement from Southwark Labour is costing a fortune. They said they’d spend every penny as if it were their own, but again we just see more waste.”