The Scottish Government has today announced that hardship loans for tenants will be made available in Scotland to those unable to access other forms of support for their housing costs.

A new £10 million Tenant Hardship Loan Fund will open later this Autumn, and will be part of a package to support people in Scotland struggling to pay rent due to financial difficulty associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

It comes just weeks after the Welsh Government announced plans to introduce a similar tenant loan scheme for tenants in the private rented sector who are struggling to pay rent due to Covid-19, following NRLA campaigning.

Responding to today’s announcement that the Scottish Government has developed an interest free, hardship loan scheme to support renters to pay-off COVID-related rent arrears, Chris Norris, Policy Director for the NRLA, said:

“We welcome today’s announcement which follows similar steps taken in Wales and we call on the UK Government to introduce similar help for tenants in England. The best way to prevent repossessions is to tackle the root cause by ensuring tenants are able to pay their rent.

“Although landlords have been doing all they can to support tenants struggling to pay their rent because of the pandemic, it is not sustainable to expect rent arrears to build indefinitely with no hope of paying them off.

“Once again the UK Government finds itself trailing behind the rest of the UK. It is time to deliver a similar scheme to support tenants and landlords in England.”

Blog Post from NRLA

See details of our Guaranteed Rent Scheme here