Help to pay the rent

When you move into one of our homes you agree to pay your rent every month or week. If you fall behind with your rent or you’re struggling to pay we can offer support to help you manage your money.

Our housing services team can offer help and information about paying rent and can also give you advice about benefits, dealing with debt and other money matters.

Find out more about managing your money and benefits.

If I don’t pay the rent

If you don’t pay your rent we’ll contact you to talk about the issue and try to agree a solution with you. After this there is a range of things we can do which includes taking action to enforce payment or bringing your tenancy to an end (eviction).

We need to go to court for you to be evicted. If this happens and you then make an agreement to clear your rent arrears, you would need to pay court charges of at least £325 on top of your arrears. To avoid this it’s a good idea to speak to us as soon as possible so we can help with your issues.

Universal Credit

If you receive Universal Credit (full service), you must report your April rent change to the Department of Work and Pensions via your online journal. If you don't, you might receive the wrong amount of Universal Credit. This could mean that you're not paid enough or you could be paid too much which will then need to be repaid. You should only report changes when they happen and not in advance.

If you need help to report changes you can:

• contact your housing services co-ordinator
• contact customer services

More information

• free advice from the government’s money advice service
• information about housing benefit
• information about universal credit
• find your local credit union

For further details on help with paying the rent, please contact us.