Changes to social and affordable rents from April 2024

This year we will be increasing rent across all our social and affordable rented homes in line with the government formula.

Published: 25/01/2024

Here’s what you need to know about the changes happening from April, and how to get in touch with us if you have any questions or need support.

We follow rules set by the government when we make any changes to your rent. This means we can increase it by the previous September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), plus 1%. We calculate service charges, and any other charges, separately based on the cost of services we provide to you.

We are increasing rents for our social and affordable rented homes by up to 7.7% from April 2024. Like most other housing associations, we’ve decided to do this so that we can invest more in our existing homes, services and communities, as well as build more much-needed social homes.

What about other rents?

If you live in an Intermediate Market Rent property, your rent will go up by 9.4%. If you are a Shared Ownership resident, your rent increase will depend on the terms of your lease.

Changes to your rent

We'll write to you to let you know what your new rent will be and how it was calculated. This depends on a range of factors, such as the type of tenancy that you have and when it started.

We’ll also confirm in your letter any changes to your service charge. You’ll be able to see at a glance what it costs us to deliver services not covered by your rent, such as cleaning and maintaining the communal areas. You’ll have at least one month’s notice before the changes come into effect.

Why are we increasing the rent?

Our absolute priority is to invest in people’s homes and continue to improve our services. When setting the rent, we consider what it costs to provide our service to you.

We carry out over 1,000 repairs every single day, and last year we spent £179 million repairing and maintaining residents’ homes. As the cost of delivering our services has gone up, we need to raise rents by the allowed 7.7 per cent.

Where does your rent go?

As a not-for-profit social landlord, we spend all of the rent we receive on maintaining and improving homes and communities, delivering local services and building more social homes.

Last year, for every one pound of rent, we spent 66p on repairs and major improvements. The rest was used to deliver other resident services including providing more local teams and to pay for financing more social homes.

You can find out more about how your rent is invested in our Annual Report to Residents 2022/23

What to do if you’re struggling

We understand that times are tough for many people. If you think this rent increase will be a struggle, then please do get in touch. We have dedicated teams who can help.

When you get your letter, please contact us if you have a query about it or if you think you’ll have difficulty paying. We can help you with advice and information on a range of benefits which you may be able to claim but may not be aware of. We can also help with debt and money management and energy-saving advice. Just call us on 0300 123 3456.