Those renting their homes from private landlords are now less likely to suffer from a serious build-up of late rent, according to the latest Tenant Arrears Tracker by Your Move and Reeds Rains.

By the final quarter of 2015, a net 1,500 households had moved out of serious rent arrears, compared to Q3. This is a 1.5% quarter-on-quarter improvement and reverses some of a deteriorating trend throughout the earlier parts of 2015. There are now 82,900 households behind on more than two months’ rent, down from 84,200 in Q3 2015.

While correcting an emerging upward trend, the latest quarterly improvement still represents a worsening on an annual basis. The number of tenants in serious rent arrears remains 19.5% higher than in Q4 2014.

However as a proportion of the entire market, the latest total still represents just 1.6% of tenancies across the UK private rented sector. This compares to a peak proportion of 2.9% of tenants in Q1 2008. The absolute number of tenants in serious arrears is also mild on a historical basis, considerably below the record 116,600 such cases seen in Q3 2012.