Arrears (or arrearage) is a legal term for the part of a
debt
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The ...
that is overdue after missing one or more required payments. The amount of the arrears is the amount accrued from the date on which the first missed payment was due. The term is usually used in relation with periodically recurring payments such as
rent
Rent may refer to:
Economics
*Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property
*Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production
*Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...
,
bills,
royalties
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
(or other
contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
ual payments), and
child support
Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid d ...
.
Payment in arrear is a payment made after a service has been provided, as distinct from in advance, which are payments made at the ''start'' of a period. For instance, rent is usually paid in advance, but mortgages in arrear (the interest for the period is due at the end of the period). Employees' salaries are usually paid in arrear. Payment at the end of a period is referred to by the singular arrear, to distinguish from past due payments. For example, a housing tenant who is obliged to pay rent at the end of each month, is said to pay rent ''in arrear,'' while a tenant who has not paid rental due for 30 days is said to be one month ''in arrears.'' Precise usage may differ slightly (e.g. "in arrear" or "in arrears" for the same situation) in different countries.
Accounting
In accounting, arrears is used in at least three different ways.
Calls in arrears
When any shareholder does not pay his/her
call money
Call money is minimum short-term finance repayable on demand, with a maturity period of one to fourteen days or overnight to a fortnight. It is used for inter-bank transactions. The money that is lent for one day in this market is known as "call ...
to company on his/her due date. At that time, company will deduct that calls in arrears from total called up capital for showing net paid up capital in balance sheet.
Dividends in arrears
The word arrears is used to mean "past due" when describing the past, omitted dividends on cumulative
preferred stock
Preferred stock (also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds) is a component of share capital that may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock, including properties of both an equity and a debt ins ...
. If a corporation fails to declare the preferred dividend, those dividends are said to be in arrears. The dividends in arrears must be disclosed in the notes (footnotes) to the financial statements. (Cumulative preferred stock requires that any past, omitted dividends must be paid to the preferred stockholders before the common stockholders will be paid any dividend.)
Annuities in arrears
The word arrears is used to mean "end of period" when referring to
annuities
In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals.Kellison, Stephen G. (1970). ''The Theory of Interest''. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. p. 45 Examples of annuities are regular deposits to a savings account, mo ...
(an annuity is series of equal amounts occurring at equal time intervals, such as £1,000 per month for 20 years). If the recurring amount comes at the end of each period, the annuity is described as an annuity in arrears or as an ordinary annuity. A loan repayment schedule is usually an annuity in arrears. For example, you borrow £10,000 on September 30 and your first monthly payment will be due on October 31, the second payment will be due on November 30, and so on.
Derivatives
An in-arrears swap is an
interest rate swap
In finance, an interest rate swap (IRS) is an interest rate derivative (IRD). It involves exchange of interest rates between two parties. In particular it is a "linear" IRD and one of the most liquid, benchmark products. It has associations wit ...
that
sets (fixes) the interest rate and pays the interest at the end of the coupon period. In contrast, a standard swap sets the interest rate in advance, at the beginning of the coupon period, and pays the interest in arrears, at the end of the coupon period. The same distinction holds for other interest rate derivatives, e.g.
caps, floors and
swaption
A swaption is an option granting its owner the right but not the obligation to enter into an underlying swap. Although options can be traded on a variety of swaps, the term "swaption" typically refers to options on interest rate swaps.
Types of ...
s.
Notes
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Debt