Contact us if you think you may be eligible for housing benefit. If you get housing benefit and still can’t pay your rent you may be eligible for a discretionary housing payment.

Stage 1 – Reminder letter

We will send you a reminder telling you how much you owe. You must contact us immediately or we may take action to evict you from your home.

Stage 2 – Notice of Proceedings

If you do not respond to our reminder letter, we will send you a Notice of Proceedings. Contact us immediately if we send you a Notice of Proceedings.

Stage 3 – Summons for Court

If you haven't contacted us about your arrears, you will be sent a Summons telling you when your case will be heard in Court.

The Court can decide:

• To 'sist' your case – to take no further action while you make payments towards your arrears or
• To 'continue' your case – to call it in Court again to allow you to show you have paid a regular amount towards your arrears or to allow for your housing benefit claim to be processed or
• To 'grant decree' – to grant us permission to evict you

Stage 4 - Eviction

If the Sheriff grants decree against you, we will send you a letter telling you the date of the eviction. It is never too late to contact someone for advice as it may still be possible to stop your eviction.

Your local Citizens Advice office:

• Denny and Dunipace
• Falkirk 
• Grangemouth and Bo'ness

We will send you a letter telling you to clear all your arrears within 7 days. If you are struggling to clear your arrears, you should contact us to discuss a reasonable amount for you to pay in addition to your standard weekly rent until your arrears is cleared. You must not fail to make any agreed payments without contacting us. If you ignore the first letter, we will send a second and final warning letter telling you to clear the arrears within a period of 10 days.

If you don't respond to this final letter or if you fail to make an agreed payment without contacting us you will receive a notice of termination letter giving you 7 days to clear your belongings from the garage and return the keys.

If you don't respond to this letter we will take court action.

A Housing Officer will visit you to carry out a property inspection before you move out. If you have any rent arrears a payment agreement will be made. You can also ask for a final rent balance when you return your keys.

You may be charged additional rent if you abandon your property, do not give us the four weeks' notice required before you move out or do not hand the keys back on time. You may also be charged for outstanding repairs.

You can apply to join the housing list if you are in arrears from a previous tenancy, but your debts may prevent you from being allocated a Council property.

We may take legal action against you, your wages or bank account could be frozen and your debt may be passed to Sheriff Officers for recovery.