{"id":594402,"date":"2026-05-20T14:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594402\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:00:09","slug":"domestic-rates-bills-debt-hits-1m-in-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594402\/","title":{"rendered":"Domestic rates bills debt hits \u00a31m in Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2025\/26 Advice NI saw users with rates debt of a total of \u00a31,066,170, up from \u00a3705,558 in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Advice NI&#8217;s head of Money, Debt and Quality, Sin\u00e9ad Campbell, says that stagnant wages and rising costs are pushing more people into debt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With most users waiting two years before seeking help with mounting debt, Campbell expects that reported rates debt will increase sharply as the cost of living crisis continues to bite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our research tells us that more people are having difficulty balancing the cost of running their home alongside other essential outgoings,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We want people to understand that rates bills should be treated as a priority debt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Falling behind on this payment can lead to serious financial and legal consequences such as a court order for money to be taken directly from your wages or benefits, or in some cases insolvency proceedings that may place someone&#8217;s home at risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rates debt is just one aspect of the burden facing consumers, with Advice NI saying its clients&#8217; average debt is now \u00a312,145. The charity supported 3,500 users last year, facing a total debt of \u00a342.5 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025\/26 Advice NI saw users with rates debt of a total of \u00a31,066,170, up from \u00a3705,558 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-594402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}