Home > Residents > Tenants Handbook > 2 - Your Tenancy > Paying your Rent

Paying your rent is your most important responsibility. We need your rent to manage and maintain your home. Without the rent paid by our tenants we cannot pay for repairs to your home, pay our staff, maintain our offices or repay the loans which we used to build or buy our properties.

How to pay your Rent

Your Tenancy Agreement says that rent is due weekly or monthly in advance. You can choose the way of paying that suits you best.

Bank Standing Order
If you have a bank account, the best way of paying is by monthly Standing Order. We can supply you with the Standing Order form and calculate the monthly figure for you. Please phone the Customer Service Centre, if you would like to pay this way.

In the Post Office
We will send you a plastic payment card for you to pay your rent in any Post Office. You can pay by cheque or with cash and you will be given a receipt by the Post Office. If you would like to pay this way please phone our Customer Service Centre and order a payment card.

At our offices
If you prefer you can send, or bring, a cheque to our offices in Sydenham. We cannot accept cash payments and we would prefer you to pay by Standing Order or in the Post Office.

Housing Benefit
If you are entitled to full or part Housing Benefit, payments will normally be sent straight to us. If you are only entitled to part Housing Benefit, it may be paid directly to you and you will need to make your own payments by Standing Order or in the

Post Office.

Other Methods of Payment
For the time being these are the only ways of paying your rent and you cannot pay by Direct Debit or by credit card. If we decide to make arrangements for payments by any other methods we will let you know.

If you are having problems paying your rent

It is very important that you let us know straight away if you are having trouble paying your rent. We can advise you on your entitlement to state benefits and we can help you fill in forms. We can refer you for debt counselling if you have other debts. We understand that there may be times when you genuinely have difficulties paying your rent. We will listen to the reasons you give us and we can make an arrangement with you for you to make up any missed payments of rent by instalments, but we expect you to clear any arrears as quickly as possible.

How you can check your rent account balance

We will send you a statement of your account every quarter. You can ask the Customer Service Centre to send you a statement at any time or you can get a balance over the phone. (We will ask some security questions first.) We will send a statement of account with most of our letters to you about rent arrears.

If you do not pay your rent

We will do all we can to help you if you fall behind with your rent payments, but it is vital that we collect rent from our tenants in order to maintain the service which we give as a landlord. If you persistently do not pay your rent on time, or if you do not keep to an arrangement you have made to make up missed payments, we will follow our procedure to recover arrears.
We will:

• Remind you by letter that rent payments have been missed
• Try to contact you to discuss the arrears, if you do notcontact us
• Serve a Notice of Seeking Possession to warn you that legal proceedings may be started
• Give you a written warning and give you a final opportunity to make up any payments
• which you have missed before applying to court
• Get a Possession Order in the County Court with a Money Judgement for the arrears and an order for the costs of taking the proceedings. The Costs will be added to your rent arrears
• Give you written warning before applying to the court for your eviction and give you a final opportunity to bring your payments back in line with the Court Order
• Get the approval of our Director before applying for your eviction
• Evict you if you do not keep to the terms of the Possession Order
• Use debt collectors, if necessary, to collect the money you owe us if you leave the property

DON’T LOSE YOUR HOME PAY YOUR RENT!

Printer Friendly Version