This sounds like a great solution. One of the wonderful things about being granted government housing when you are very poor as I have been, is that it takes away the worry about where your rent will come from, so you can focus on things like improving your circumstances.

There’s an assumption in some comments here that people who can’t pay rent are spending their pay, however low it is, on non-essentials. People leaving these comments are out of touch with the nation’s poor. Living on a benefit or low income is hard and something as simple as living alone makes it even more expensive when you have to cover all the bills.

Count yourself lucky you can afford internet access and have the time to sit about posting on blogs.

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Like the greedy finance companies who now expect nanny state to bail them out to the tune of trillions. the few people on benefits who abuse the system are a drop in the ocean in comparison to these bludgers.

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If I was a renter, I’d weigh the cost of paying by this method (fee) vs the benefits (bonus points/air miles/etc). As a landlord, it appeals because chasing rent is a cost we already face. That cost is built into the rent now. If this method works out cheaper for all concerned, then what’s the problem?

Heaven forbid personal responsibility should come into the equation.

PS: I already gave at the IRD. I’m NOT giving AGAIN to those who blow their rent money on non-essentials.

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I have a friend whose daughter came to live here with him for two years. She’s applied for UK University, and been told that she will have to go back to the UK and sit GCSE in April irrespective of what grades she gets in L3. How good is that?

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My post from yesterday that pointed this out still hasn’t appeared…

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Surely RentExpress is just a service rather than a finance company. It is still the banks that are responsible for offering responsible credit limits to their customers. I would be happy paying my rent on credit card, just like I do my supermarket shopping and air tickets.

The extra fee imposed by RentExpress will be incorporated into market prices for flat rental. It will be a drop in the bucket especially when competitors come onto the market.

Lets not get sidetrackked from the issue that it is the major banks that control our money and cynically attempt to maximise peoples debt to the greatest sustainable level.

It also amuses me that great thinkers like Big Bro always pick on the in debt, uneducated, lazy, beneficiary, I think recent events have shown that the level of beneficiary debt is far less of a problem than that of blue collar and white collar workers.

I’m all for voucher systems. Lets forget rights and talk responsibilities. We have the responsibility to look after those for who things have gone astray, they have the responsibility to make the most of this help that we give them.

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Paying rent by credit card is easy and always has been: get a cash advance.

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Sorry
I was in England. We had a state school system that was streamed, that ensured every child had the opportunity to see a way forward for themselves, and be able to deal with the challenges that that highest path would bring.
Today, after 50 years of Socialist influence on both England and New Zealand, we have a school system that says everyone is the same, that teaches every child that not succeeding is different to failing, that must, by its nature, work to the lowest common denominator. Worse, its only hint of streaming is based on income (decility of schools) not ability or potential (IQ or other learning capability base).
Only when society accepts that we are not all equal. That some people have the ability to take mankind to new horizons while some are challenged keeping the floor of a Mall clean, and that an appropriate understanding of the basics of societal ability (i.e. budgeting and expenditure control,) in all young people is part of what schools must impart. When this has been accepted, and we stop abandoning our children at 18 with an ‘off-you-go’ wave, will we again progress as a society rather than just an economy.

Socialism (the improvement of society) has now been subsumed by communism (the equality of all in the commune) and a sad and perilous time has come upon Western Society. The Chinas, Sri Lankas, Indias, etc., of the world, where education beyond 16 is a privilege granted by society to its worthy members, and high achievement is a goal instilled from birth, are the type of countries to whom the 21st century will belong in the eyes of 22nd century historians!

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> There should be no option Toad, if you receive a handout from the tax payer by way of an unemployment, sickness or invalids benefit then it should not be in monetary form.

most people who have to leave their jobs because of ill-health were perfectly capable of managing their finances when they were working, and they still are capable of managing their finances.

I see no reason why the government should spend heaps of money on employing bureaucrats to do it for them.

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Most beneficiaries are people who’ve found themselves on the wrong side of hard luck, and are quite capable of paying the rent out of their meagre incomes. The real ‘nanny state’ is the one that treats people like complete idiots, controls their lives and takes away their freedoms, just because there are a few who can’t get their budgets right.

big bro obviously hasn’t had anything to do with WINZ in any capacity in the last 15 years, otherwise he would know that beneficiaries of all types are hounded to get a job, any job, as soon as possible. It doesn’t matter to them if it makes the person unemployable in their profession, or wastes their skills in a low skilled job – getting them out as soon as possible is still the MO of WINZ.

A government intervention I can wholeheartedly endorse (and I’m almost scared to mention it, for fear of it being savaged by the reactionary right) is HNZ supporting tenants with the establishment of vegetable gardens. It’s absolutely brilliant, good for all involved, and helps provide low cost high value food to an increasing number of NZers.

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And as for those who have “financial management problems”, well they could always try getting a job or training themselves up for a better one, the few really smart ones might even try not to have kids they cannot afford.

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So seems we do agree on some things – both this and discouraging the overconsumption of booze, drugs and KFC (personally, I’d discourage any consumption of KFC at all).

What I do not agree with is encouraging people to pay their rent by credit card. The whole global recession we are in at the moment is based on people financing lifestyles they cannot afford on debt and the willingness of financial institutions to support this. People who are having financial mamagement problems will only see them exacerbated if the option of paying their rent on credit is facilitated.

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>> Seems to me that way back in my youth I was told that money in always had to travel to its proper destination quickly. First the rent, then the insurance, then the ‘bills’, then food, then clothes’ if you were then lucky enough to have money you hadn’t spent, it was OK to do what you like with it, as long as that included saving half for ‘in-case’. Today’s children are not taught these lessons, either at school or at home; a bad reflection of the socialism that has pervaded our lives since I, and my children, was young!

I understand that in the 1950s, when the New Zealand government was at its most socialist, children were taught that.

I think the Student Loans scheme bears a large responsibility for teaching people to think of going into debt to buy consumables as ‘normal’.

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Nothing for booze, drugs or KFC.

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