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Arrears is a financial and legal term that refers to the status of payments in relation to their due dates. The word is most commonly used to describe an obligation or liability that has not received payment by its due date. Therefore, the term arrears applies to an overdue payment. If one or more payments have been missed where regular payments are contractually required, such as mortgage or rent payments and utility or telephone bills, the account is in arrears.Payments that are made at the end of a period are also said to be in arrears. In this case, payment is expected to be made after a service is provided or completed—not before.The term arrears can have many different applications depending on the industry and context in which it is used. As noted above, arrears generally refers to any amount that is overdue after the payment due date for accounts such as loans and mortgages. Simply put, it means your payment is late. Accounts can also be in arrears for things like car payments, utilities, and child support—any time you have a payment due that you miss.For example, if your $500 loan payment is due on January 15 and you miss the payment, you are in arrears for $500 as of the next business day. If you continue making regular payments each month after that, you are still in arrears for $500 until the time you make up January payment you missed. Similarly, if you paid $300 of that January 15 payment, you are in arrears for $200 as of January 16 until the time you pay it off and bring your account up to date.Being in arrears may or may not have a negative connotation depending on how the term is used. In some cases, such as bonds, arrears can refer to payments that are made at the end of a certain period. Similarly, mortgage interest is paid in arrears, meaning each monthly payment covers the principal and interest for the preceding month.Mortgage and rent arrears are classed as a priority debt – meaning they need to be paid off before other debt, such as credit cards and personal loans.They’re a priority because of the serious consequences caused by missing your payments. For example, if you don’t pay your mortgage or secured loan on time, your home is at risk of being repossessed… and if you don’t pay your rent, you could be evicted.How to regain control of your rent paymentsFirstly, speak to your landlord and work out a repayment plan if you can’t afford to pay off your arrears straight away. It’ll require you to pay your rent each month, as well as a bit extra to make up for your missed payments. Be sure to calculate repayments you can afford, so you’re able to stick to your new plan. Secondly, it's time to be strict with yourself and cut any unnecessary outgoings. You can use these savings to pay off your rent arrears. Being able to effectively manage your money is super important, especially if you're on a low-income. It'll be your saviour when times get tough. For help, use an online budgeting calculator.And thirdly, you should check if you're receiving all the benefits you're entitled to and put them towards paying your rent. If you're on a low-income, you could be eligible for housing benefit or universal credit. There's also a discretionary housing payment (DHP) available, if your housing benefit doesn't cover the full rent.

Entitlement is a technical legal term in this case.The origin of its use comes directly from the older British meaning of "bestowing a title" -- that is, you make someone a Lord, and it automatically grants them certain rights and privileges, by virtue of having this title.When used correctly, "entitlement" refers to a program which legislation dictates that anyone who meets the eligibility criteria must be given access to the specified benefit or service.For example:MedicareMedicaidSocial SecuritySNAP (Food Stamps)Are all Federal Entitlement programs. If someone who meets the resources/income/etc. criteria applies for food stamps, they will receive food stamps. If someone who meets the age/etc. criteria applies to receive Medicare benefits, Federal legislations says that they must be granted applicable Medicare benefits as is outlined by law.Since all eligible people who request entitlement benefits must be able to receive entitlement benefits, Congress must ensure that the budget allocates sufficient funds to meet the projected need. These programs leave no budgetary wiggle room -- the law says that they have to be fully funded.Important: Not all safety net programs are entitlement programs.The opposite of entitlement in this case is "discretionary."Not all people who apply for benefits under a discretionary program will receive them.Programs with discretionary funding must be periodically re-authorized by Congress (i.e., every couple years, Congress must vote on a bill that says "Yes, this program should continue.")Each discretionary program is allotted a certain amount of money in the Federal budget, and the programs must find ways to target and serve those most in need of benefits -- and then deny or wait list eligible individuals when demand exceeds the budget.For example:TANF (welfare)Low-income energy assistanceLow-income housing assistanceSenior nutrition programsand many, many, many other social services programsAre all discretionary programs that serve as many eligible individuals as they can, but which are not legally mandated to provide benefits to all who are eligible.So it is these discretionary programs that give Congress budgetary wiggle room. Congress can slash discretionary spending as much as they like -- because there is no law that says everyone in need has to be given these benefits.

In fact, Hong Kong did have a well worked-out public housing policy at the time when the British returned Hong Kong to China in 1997.When Tung Chee Hwa was chosen to be Hong Kong's first Chief Executive after the handover, he and his team announced the “85,000 policy” in Oct 1997 as part of the Hong Kong government’s Long Term Housing Strategy. It stated that no less than 85,000 public and private flats would be built annually starting in 1999.However, it was not meant to be. A year after the announcement, Tung scrapped the plan. In fact, Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong's 3rd Chief Executive who served between 2012 and 2017 blamed Tung for scrapping the housing plan and not standing firm. Leung was working under Tung and known for being an advocate for the “85,000 policy” during Tung’s tenure.Leung told the media in 2018 that Hong Kong’s present housing crisis could have been averted if the “85,000 policy” had stayed in place.Leung blamed the opposition parties blocking the “85,000 policy” during the first post-handover administration. Leung also said that, contrary to popular belief, the policy did not cause the 1997 housing market crash.“If Tung’s 85,000 policy had the acceptance and cooperation of the public, including those in the legislature, today’s housing problems would not exist,” Leung said. “Because people at the time widely believed that the 85,000 policy was responsible for the fall in prices, the government decided to cancel the goal, and you can see the effect today."“Tung and others wanted to enact the 85,000 policy, but popular opinion – especially the opposition faced in the Legislative Council – made it impossible,” he said. “It was the same over the past few years: we tried to increase the land supply, but we could not get it passed because the opposition parties control whether the budget gets approved.”Collusion between officials and property tycoons in HKIt's no secret that Hong Kong property market is controlled by a minority of rich property tycoons in Hong Kong.For example, Lam Woon-kwong who was the Convenor of the Executive Council between 2012 and 2017, once lamented to the media that the biggest land bank was not owned by the government, but was in the hands of property tycoons.Naturally, a policy like Tung's “85,000 policy” flooding the market with property units would be detrimental to the interests of those property tycoons. It has thus been speculated that the scrapping of the “85,000 policy” was in-part linked to pressures from the tycoons.Eurasia Review, an independent Journal and Think Tank, wrote an article some years ago pointing to collusion between officials and property tycoons in Hong Kong."The collusion outcry definitely fans the popular speculation that the economy of this Special Administration Region is de facto ruled by the four major property tycoons in Hong Kong. By virtue of their riches, they command the attention of senior politicians in public office, to such an extent that policies are usually formulated with their best interests in mind and preference treatment or direct favoritism are granted to them from time to time either above the law or below the table," it said.Publicly, there have been numerous allegations of favoritism, conflicts of interest and suspected bribery with property tycoons by public officials that lend credence to the above speculation.Such speculations were especially heightened when Hong Kong was shaken by the arrest of Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) Executive Director Thomas Chan by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on 19 March 2012. Co-chairmen Thomas and Raymond Kwok and five others were later also arrested as part of an extensive corruption probe. Rafael Hui, former chief secretary of Hong Kong, was taken in for questioning. In December 2014, Thomas Kwok and Rafael Hui were convicted of the HK$8,500,000 bribery, and Hui was convicted of four more charges relating to misconduct in public office.In addition to being the Chief Secretary, Hui was also the managing director of Mandatory Providence Fund (MPF), and the chairman of the steering committee on the development of western Kowloon, a mega project valued at USD 1.0 billion involving cultural facilities and real-estate development. Even before the corruption case erupted, Hui was seen as a close friend and business associate of Kwok’s brothers. In 2003, after his resignation from the MPF Office, Hui set up a consultancy firm dedicated to providing political and economic consultancy services. The following year, while serving as a director of the Kowloon Motor Bus Company, a corporation under the SHKP Group, Hui was offered to live in a luxurious apartment in Leighton Hill which is worth about HK$ 150 million and apparently at the expense of the Kwok’s brothers. In 2005, Hui was invited by the former Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, his long-term alliance in the government, to become the Chief Secretary for the Administration. But instead of moving into the official residence at Barker Road, Hui insisted to stay in Kwok’s luxurious Leighton Hill apartment. This insistence of maintaining a close tie with the Kwok’s brothers, along with the suspicion that he was granted an overdraft privileges at banks without collateral so as to maintain his lavish style of living eventually aroused the suspicion of corruption. Hui became the highest ranked civil servant in Hong Kong history to be put behind bar for bribery.The collusion of Hui with the Kwok’s brother undoubtedly has helped SHKP to dominate the Hong Kong property market. During the period Hui was in various senior public offices, it was believed that he had revealed substantial confidential information to his related parties with regard to government policies, internal planning on land sales and zoning, and accorded these parties preferential treatments in exchange of the favors and benefits he received from them.Rafael HuiThen there was a controversy involving another senior civil servant, Permanent Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, Leung Chin-man, and the New World Development Group (NWD). In the year prior to 2004, Leung acted on behalf of the government to sell a never-occupied high-rise complex called the Hung Hom Peninsula, which was built under the Private Sector Participation Scheme project, for a below-market land premium of HK$864 million to NWD. The latter subsequently sold off half of the share to SHKP. In late 2004, the consortium announced the demolition of these buildings to make way for luxury apartments. Their plan was eventually withdrawn due to the huge public outcry against this needless destruction of “perfectly good buildings” to satisfy “corporate greed”.Leung was also involved in another case of suspected preferential treatment granted to property developer Henderson Land Development (HLD), which had won a tender for a site in Sai Wan Ho for Grand Promenade with a land premium of HK$2.43 billion in January 2001. Six months later, the developer successfully applied for and was granted permission by Leung to exclude the public transport terminus from the gross floor area in its building plan. This exclusion was akin to granting HLD an additional 10,700 square meters to the project, doubling the number of apartments from 1,008 to 2,020, and resulted in lost revenue to the government amounting to HK$125 million. A 2005 Audit Report criticized Leung for having exercised his discretionary power before conferring with other government departments, thus handing to the developer additional revenue of HK$3.2 billion in exchange for a land premium of $6 million. Leung tabled a judicial review to justify his discretionary power and eventually forced the Government in May 2006 to drop the legal proceedings. The government drew severe criticism for not pressing the case in court, despite of wide suspicion that conflict of interest was involved in Leung’s dealings with NWD and HLD.The public outcry was soon proven well founded. In July 2008 after his retirement, Leung was offered a post as deputy managing director of New World China Land, a subsidiary of NWD. It turned out that after one year ‘sterilization period’ after retirement, Leung obtained approval from the Civil Service Bureau to take up employment with New World China Land. This job offer immediately provoked public uproar amidst widespread suspicion that it was a quid pro quo for the favors he apparently granted to NWD in 2004 for the Hung Hom project.Controversies surrounded not only the suspicions of Leung’s own conflict of interest, but also of the insensitivity of the committee which recommended the approval for him to take up his new job with a HK$3.12 million pay packet in less than two years after his official retirement. Under public pressure, NWD announced on 16 August, 2008 that Leung had resigned from his post. The Secretary for the Civil Service apologized for the poor handling of the case, which seriously undermined the authority and credibility of the Civil Service Bureau.There were more precedents in favoritism towards property tycoons behind the scenes than meets the eye. One of the most conspicuous one is the Cyberport Project. This project has been conjured up to build a physical hub for information technology on 26 hectares of prime land in Hong Kong Island. The development was announced by Donald Tsang, then Financial Secretary, in his budget speech on 3 March, 1999. The project was awarded to the Pacific Century Group (PCG), with no tender called. PCG is a private company controlled by Richard Li, younger son of Li Ka Shing, who is a long-time friend of Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa. The Cyberport project was described in the budget on March 3, 1999 as being a “HK$13bn development, mostly from private investment”. A statement from the Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau (ITBB) the same day said “the Government will provide the site as its equity contribution while PCG will make a capital contribution of about HK$7 billion to the whole development”. From this one could infer that the government values the land merely at HK$6 billion, a valuation believed to be much lower than its fair market price.Upon public disclosure, it turned out that over 75% of the developed area is residential, whereas the office space allocated for the Information Technology firms represents only 17% of the total. And the purported “shared facilities” such as “demonstration facilities”, a “media laboratory”, and “exhibition and trade show facilities” make up part of a small 18,000 sq. m. block which includes houses and apartments, so even if half of this block is shared facilities, it would only account for 1.7% of the development, amounting to a shared Laundromat in a housing estate! Hence, it becomes obvious that the so called Cyberport project is in fact a residential development project in disguise, and it was granted exclusively to the company of property tycoon Li Ka Shing’s son without any formal tender process.Finally, one mustn't forget about Donald Tsang, the 2nd Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2005 to 2012. In the last months of his term, Tsang was embroiled by various corruption allegations. He was discovered to have received favours and hospitality from the tycoons on various occasions, including private jet and yacht trips and was labelled as "Greedy Tsang". He was subsequently charged by the Independent Commission Against Corruption and was found guilty of one count of misconduct in public office in February 2017 and was sentenced to a 20-month imprisonment, becoming the highest officeholder in Hong Kong history to be convicted and imprisoned. The Court of Final Appeal unanimously quashed his conviction and sentence in June 2019, ruling that he had already suffered a “just punishment” by being jailed 12 months.HK protests stem from stratospheric housing pricesIn Aug 2019, renowned economist Andy Xie opined that at the root of the civil unrest in Hong Kong actually stems in part from stratospheric housing prices that have locked many residents out of the market.Xie pointed out that HK property tycoons ‘are the problem’ underlying the unrest. Property prices in Hong Kong have appreciated over 300% since 2003 but wages have largely stagnated in the same period, so “it’s very difficult to see how young people can feel hope. They know they’ll never be able to afford a place, so they cannot start a family. How can they get ahead in life? Desperation, and really a deep sense of unhappiness, is driving this unrest,” said Xie.Xie attributed the sky-high property price to the housing market being lead by local business leaders. “The Hong Kong government is not really in charge (even though) most people think that they need to listen to Beijing, but perhaps more importantly, they are really influenced by the big property tycoons,” said Xie.Although the Hong Kong authorities have changed housing policies several times, “in the end, they favor tycoons, giving the land to the tycoons,” the economist asserted. But private developers “hold the land, not building much and they just try to squeeze the market and push the prices as much as possible,” he said.“For ordinary people, you make an income about 5% of a financial guy and they think you should get 5% of an apartment, so they create something like a ‘nano flat,’” he said, referring to tiny apartments in Hong Kong that can be the size of a parking space. “That is really crazy.”Nano flat“They think that people will just take it lying down forever, (but) eventually, it blows up,” said Xie, who was a former chief Asia-Pacific economist at Morgan Stanley. “The key is that the political structure here is neither the Singapore situation where the government is on top, nor like Taiwan (where) it’s a democracy and people can vote,” said Xie, who also writes for South China Morning Post from time to time. Hong Kong is “in between — just a bunch of business people calling the shots,” he added. He said that Beijing needs to distance itself from the tycoons in Hong Kong.“Every time, there’s a disturbance in Hong Kong, Beijing goes to these business guys for advice; you know something’s very wrong,” said Xie. “These guys are causing the trouble in Hong Kong, why are you going to them for advice every time?”“They are the problem; they need to become regular business people, not having political power (and) running the place,” said Xie.Echoing what Xie said, Simon Lee from the Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School also opined that while the protests were squarely directed at the controversial Extradition Bill in the beginning, it became clearer over time that there was deep dissatisfaction over the administrative failures of the Hong Kong government in meeting its people’s needs, especially on housing, which of course, is the bread and butter business of the property tycoons in Hong Kong.In the 5000 year history of China, every time corruption permeates and, officials and business people start to collude to fleece and oppress the peasants to such an extent that they have to sell their wife and daughters to survive, revolution will surely follow resulting in chaos and deaths for everyone. Wasn't that how the Communist Party of China was founded? To build a new China and take down the landlords aligning themselves with the Nationalist warlords, who were all colluding to oppress and fleece the peasants in order to enrich themselves further?Ref:https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/06/13/ex-hong-kong-leader-cy-leung-defends-controversial-1990s-housing-policy-says-crisis-averted/Property market in 'dangerous situation', warns Lam Woon-kwongHong Kong: Revelations In SHK Bribery Case; Collusion Between Politicians And Property Tycoons – OpEdSun Hung Kai Properties - WikipediaDonald Tsang - WikipediaEconomist: Hong Kong's tycoons 'are the problem' underlying recent unrestUpdate (17 Sep 2019):On 12 Sep 2019, the People's Daily published an editorial piece (解决住房问题，香港不能再等了!) urging the Hong Kong authorities to act on the housing problems in Hong Kong. The title of the article read, "Fix the housing problem, Hong Kong can no longer wait!"The People's Daily (人民日報) is the largest newspaper group in China and is an official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Hence, it provides direct information on the policies and view points of the Communist Party of China.The editorial noted that the housing problem in Hong Kong is becoming more serious. The average waiting time for public housing applications has increased to 5.4 years, with 100,000 people living in “coffin rooms” and subdivided flats."This situation is incompatible with the internationally renowned metropolis and is in stark contrast to the mansions on the Taiping Mountain (where the rich lives)," it said.Having a house, clothing, and food is the most basic human right and the most basic dignity one should have, it added."There is no reason for Hong Kong to wear a glamorous coat such as 'the most competitive economy in the world' when it embarrassingly fails in housing."The editorial also reiterated that the crux of Hong Kong's housing problem lies in land supply. It noted that it isn't the case that Hong Kong has no land but the Hong Kong government has too little.It further noted that Hong Kong property developers have been hoarding most of the land and not developing them. It opined that the Hong Kong government could consider taking the land back from the developers after compensating them with the amount "equivalent to the actual value of the property at the time", under Article 105 for the Basic Law.The editorial then turned to the developers, saying, "In public interest, in order to solve the livelihood of the people, it's time for the real estate developers to release the greatest goodwill, instead of being selfish, hoarding land and earning the last penny.""We can understand that some Hong Kong people are worried that the increase in supply of land may result in a rapid depreciation of assets in the short term. It is also understandable that real estate developers are concerned about not making money," it said."But this is precisely the time to re-examine immediate interests against long-term interests, and re-balance personal interests against the greater societal interests.""Once the Hong Kong society is deadlocked and loses competitiveness, the value of everyone's property will depreciate; as long as the Oriental Pearl continues to remain competitive, then the beneficiaries must be Hong Kong enterprises and its people."The editorial also opined that a large part why the Extradition Bill was able to rope in many of the young people, who originally didn't care about politics, to protest was because they feel despair of the future of Hong Kong, and housing is an important reason.It went on to criticise the previous and current Hong Kong Chief Executives, Tung Chee Hwa, Leung Chun-ying and Carrie Lam, for failing to carry out their promises to fix Hong Kong's public housing problems. Many of their plans ended sloppily, were heavily discounted or stalled altogether, noted the editorial.It further criticised the opposition parties in the Legislative Council opposing for the sake of opposing, crippling some of the Hong Kong government's housing plans. It also criticised the property developers, "There are property developers for the sake of profits, coerce the Hong Kong government and shackle public will, causing the entire Hong Kong society to fall into a mess where housing prices are beyond public reach but at the same time cannot afford to fall, where housing are insufficient but not built.""And some members of public neither understand nor trust the SAR government's ability to improve Hong Kongers' livelihood," it added."Hong Kong can't wait any further," the editorial ended with a warning.More Updates:About 2 weeks after the publication of an editorial piece from the People's Daily urging the Hong Kong authorities to act on the housing problems and singling out Hong Kong developers for not doing enough to alleviate housing problems, Reuters reported (25 Sep 2019) that New World Development had declared that it would donate 3 million square feet of its farmland reserves for social housing. This constitutes about one fifth of its land bank with an attributable total site area of around 16.9 million square feet.The Chengs of New World Development is one of the big 4 property oligarchs controlling most of the residential land bank in Hong Kong. The other 3 are:Kwoks of Sun Hung Kai Properties which owns an estimated 30 million sq ftLee Shau Kee's ('Uncle Fouth') family of Henderson Land Development which owns about 45 million sq ftLi Ka-shing's ('Superman Li') family of CK Asset which owns about 9 million sq ft.Hong Kong political parties have called on the government to make more use of an ordinance to resume agricultural land from property developers to build public housing, instead of letting them sitting on it. To maintain the high property prices in Hong Kong, the big 4 have been controlling the housing constructions and limiting supply.The People's Daily criticised the Hong Kong developers for hoarding land and said it was time for them “to release the greatest goodwill, instead of just playing their own calculations, smashing the land, earning the last copper plate”.Facing increasing pressure from Beijing, Adrian Cheng, executive vice chairman of New World Development, has assured in a press conference that his company would adopt an open attitude if the HK government needed to look for land for public housing.