Saving...
If you’re a council tenant, you need to make sure your rent is paid on time. Your rent is due every two weeks and must be paid in advance. The rent you pay helps us to deliver vital services.
Paying your rent is straightforward and there are many payment options available to you:
- By cash at any paypoint facility
- By direct debit
- By standing order
- or
Rent arrears
We know that rent payments can be missed. Sometimes, this is through no fault of your own. If you have fallen behind with your rent, please get in touch with us. We can offer free, confidential advice and help you to arrange to pay back your debt in instalments. It’s far better to sort these arrears early, before they become a bigger problem.
It may be that you can claim housing benefit or Universal Credit to help with these payments. Claiming benefits can be difficult and we’re here to help.
We can also provide information and advice to customers with multiple debts owed to us.
If you continue to ignore your arrears, you will receive a formal ‘Notice of Proceedings’. This is hand delivered by Sheriff Officers. This is the start of legal action and can result in us ending your tenancy. This notice goes to everyone in your home over the age of 15 years and 6 months. They don’t have to be joint tenants.
If you’re struggling to pay your rent, please contact us on 03451 55 00 44. We are open Monday to Friday, between 8am and 6pm. We will discuss the situation and explain all the options available to you.
Lock up and garage arrears
If you rent a lock-up or garage site from us, this is separate from your housing rent.
A lock up tenancy is a non-secure tenancy. This means if you miss a payment, you will immediately receive a warning letter. You will be given three arrears letters. The third one is a final notice to quit. What you do after this letter controls what happens next:
- Your arrears have been cleared
- no further action will be taken
- Most of the arrears have been cleared, but a small balance remains
- We will go back to the second letter stage
- No payment has been made to the arrears
- We will take the lock up back. The locks will be changed on the same day or the next day.
If you have left anything in the lock up, you have 14 days to collect the keys and clear it. If you don’t do this, you will be recharged for the work. This includes the lock change.
If you rent a Garage site, you will get an invoice every year. If you don’t pay this, we would follow the same process as above.