Strong rent collection by Housing
By RACHNA LAL
Housing Authority has collected a total of $600,000 for ground rent over a three-month period from May until uly 2011 after the introduction of a discount incentive.
Housing Authority chief executive, Alipate Naiorosui said: “Since April, lending executives had contacted leaseholders as well as written to customers advising them on the due dates for ground rent payment as well as the discount for each month.”
In May, an eight per cent discount was introduced to encourage homeowners to pay their ground rent accounts.
The discount incentive was subsequently reduced to six per cent for June and eventually four per cent for those customers who paid during the month of July.
According to the ground rent performance report, approximately 700 customers took advantage of the discount incentive in May of which 42 per cent were from the Western Division.
The ground rent discount was re-introduced this year because of the impact of floods in the first quarter of 2012 and was anticipated to benefit 13,000 Housing Authority lease-holders.
Mr Naiorosui said considering 13,000 were provided this discount incentive and only 3800 lease holders paid their ground rent accounts, they would be aggressively targeting those customers’ accounts who remain in arrears without any arrangements.
“Recovery actions that may be instituted by the authority include entering the lease holder’s names into the Credit Data Bureau as an immediate measure which will disqualify defaulters from purchasing goods on hire purchase or accessing credit facilities,” he said.
“Housing Authority will also continues to institute legal action through the Small Claims Tribunal or as a last option cancel the lease by re-entry.”
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