ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 has shown that default is not necessarily an automatic or immediate consequence of income and expenditure disruption. Few households wake up one day and unexpectedly find themselves in arrears. In only one or two cases did this occur, as for example in the case discussed earlier where borrowers believed that DHSS payments were being made direct so preventing default, whereas in the event the payments were made to the claimant. The more typical pattern is one many borrowers outlined as first 'juggling', or 'back-pedalling' or 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' and so a gradual slide to the point where such strategies could no longer contain income and expenditure.
