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Home / Whanganui Chronicle

TV Review: Can't Pay documentary is hard to watch

By Lin Ferguson
Whanganui Chronicle·
18 Aug, 2018 03:00 AM3 mins to read

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This is a hard hitting documentary for debtors.

Yet the uniformed High Court enforcement officers oddly do their utmost to seem like decent caring chaps even though they are ripping lives apart.

The reality is they're out there to deal the hard decisions, so no matter how the debtors squeal these guys are impervious to excuses ... they've heard them all.

British Doco Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away, Prime on Wednesdays, is not for sissies, anyone can spin a sob story. Everyone has got one.

This is a absolutely a case of put up or shut up, we're taking it.

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According to the latest statistics, thousands of young people in Britain aged between 18-25 are suffering from massive debts of student loans and mortgages.

Many can't sleep at nights and nearly all are too terrified to look at their bank balances.

Failing to make repayments on a debt or falling into huge arrears on rent, there's no sympathy.

Evicting tenants was a large part of the equation with these enforcement officers standing their ground, ordering the tenant or tenants to be out with their personal belongings within an hour.

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I found it tough watching a man in his 40s being thrown out of his one-bedroom flat.

It was described as a one-bedroom flat but seriously it was a scummy little rat-hole I wouldn't put a dog in and yet this poor bloke was paying 1200 pounds a month in rent. Worse, he was being ditched so the landlord could up the rent for some other poor sucker.

Even the two bailiffs were horrified, especially as only one of them could squeeze inside the rat-hole with the hapless tenant.

I suppose the landlord who had said he wanted to do up that nasty flat really meant he'd paint the window sill. There was only one grimy little window.

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Then there was the young mum with a 4-month-old baby and her mum being loaded out of another dank hole as if they were so much garbage.

It wasn't at all riveting viewing to see this young mum was pressing documents at the bailiffs trying to show them she had been making an effort with paying rent.

But once again tough. It was a High Court writ and there was no leeway she was told.

The pain of watching this eviction was the unbridled joy on the faces of the landlord and fat, blowsy wife standing gloating on the pavement across the street.

That shot should have been binned.

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