More than £80,000 of rent arrears unpaid by City of York Council tenants is to be written-off by the authority, a report reveals.

Targeting primarily the rent arrears of former tenants whose whereabouts are unknown, or who may have died, council chiefs will add to the £100,000 in debts already written off earlier this year.

Every year, the council is required by the district auditor to examine any outstanding balances and to rid the balance sheet of uncollectable debts.

At a meeting at the Guildhall on Monday, November 1, the council's housing and advisory panel will debate options on clearing £80,855.30 in bad debts, a figure which represents 0.37 per cent of the total amount owed to the authority in rent arrears.

These bad debts arise from cases which have been referred to a debt collection or tracing agency, where investigators have been unsuccessful in tracing the former tenant or where the tenant has died, leaving inadequate financial provision to cover the rent arrears. Bad debt statistics also cover former tenants who have been declared bankrupt and are therefore unable to cancel their debts.

A report by city contracts manager Tom Brittain says there was a need to "write off bad debts more readily" since bad debts have "an adverse effect on resources available for expenditure".

Monitoring of former tenant arrears is an ongoing process. Every two weeks, the council reassesses the balance-sheets on outstanding rent arrears. When deciding how best to recover unpaid rent, council officials weigh-up the size of the debt in each case.

Mr Brittain said: "Efforts are made to recover the debt in the traditional ways - by letters, visits, phone calls and, where appropriate, court action is taken."

Updated: 11:24 Monday, October 25, 2004