creating communities to be proud of
your rent, service charges and tenancy agreement
Your rent charges
In 2001 the Government introduced its rent restructuring rules. These rules require us to calculate your rent using a Government formula. The limit on the rent increases which we are allowed to make is based on a formula that includes the inflation figure, known as the Retail Price Index, or “RPI”. Each year we set the new rent as follows:
RPI + 0.5%
In addition, if your rent level has not yet reached the target rent set by government, we may also apply an increase of up to £2 per week.
The figure for RPI in 2009 was a negative amount, -1.4%, which means that from April 2010 a rent reduction should apply for some tenants. However, the current tenancy agreement, which is the legal document governing how we must treat you, does not allow for a rent reduction, because a negative inflation figure was unforeseen.
In order for us to legally be able to apply a rent reduction we therefore need to get every tenant to sign a new tenancy agreement.
We are drafting the new tenancy agreement at the moment and we will be contacting you for your comments in the next few weeks. Once we have received and considered your comments we can respond accordingly. We will then ask tenants to sign-up to the new agreement.
As we have over 8,000 tenants, this process will take some time to complete. For some tenants we will not be in time for a rent reduction to be introduced in April 2010, however please be assured that for these tenants we will apply a rent credit to your account so that you are not missing out on paying a reduced amount of rent.
Service Charge scheme for tenants
We have recently been consulting with a focus group of tenants on service charges, with the aim of introducing an appropriate charging scheme from April 2010. We are doing this in response to a call from our regulator, the Tenant Services Authority, who expects us to provide our tenants with clear and simple information about the cost of the services they receive, and for us to apply clear and transparent charges for these services. At the moment the cost of services are “pooled” so we are unable to break them down fairly according to the services received by individual tenants.
Service charges are amounts payable by an occupier for the provision of communal services and the repair and maintenance of common areas. The charges will vary year by year depending on the amount actually spent.
The focus group looked in detail at the services that could be charged for and helped us consider what would be the fairest way to do this. We now have some proposals on which we wish to consult with you.
In order to implement service charges for tenants we will need to change the wording in our current tenancy agreement and so we will be consulting with you at the same time as for the changes to the tenancy agreement to allow a rent decrease mentioned above.
For those tenants currently in receipt of Housing Benefit, some of the service charges we will be introducing will be eligible for Housing Benefit. For some tenants the new charges may bring you into Housing Benefit entitlement. Further advice and information will be provided as part of our consultation with you.
Consultation
We will be contacting you during the early part of 2010 to talk to you individually about these changes, provide you with further information and advice about the proposed new rent and service charge amounts, and asking you to sign a new tenancy agreement.
For existing tenants it is up to you whether to sign a new tenancy agreement or not. You will need to decide if it is in your interests or not.
If you have any queries please contact us on 0845 849 2000 or email info@shorelinehp.com
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© 2007-2010 Shoreline Housing Partnership Ltd. Registered Charity Number 1107876. |
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