Rents and Service Charges
What do we do with your rent?
- Keep your home in good repair;
- Manage the housing service (run the office, manage the waiting list, make sure all empty homes are relet as soon as possible, order repairs and so on);
- Help make your neighbourhood and Warrington better places to live by supporting community developments;
- Pay back any money we have borrowed to build new homes and to improve older ones; and
- Put money aside to pay for future major repairs.
How is your rent set?
Your tenancy agreement or lease will tell you what type of agreement you have. This will affect how your rent is set.
If you have a tenancy agreement dated before January 1989, you will have a ‘fair-rent tenancy’. If you are a fair-rent tenant, the Rent Officer will set your rent every two years. This is an independent organisation, and is not linked to us in any way. They will look at the area you live in, the size of your home and its condition, and the facilities you have. They will also look at the rents of similar properties in the area.
You can appeal against the rent set by the Rent Officer to the Rent Assessment Panel. They will either agree with the rent that has been set, or put the rent up or down if they agree with the appeal.
Most tenancies created after January 1989, including those transferred from the Warrington New Town, are known as assured tenancies. As an assured tenant, we will assess your rent every year. We will increase your rent from the first Monday in April every year, and we will always give you four weeks’ notice, in writing, before you will have to pay.
We set the rents for our properties by taking account of the number of bedrooms in a property, how much the property is worth and the average income levels in the county. This is in line with government policy, which requires all housing associations and local authorities to set their rents in this way. Overall, the rent we charge should be less than the ‘market rate’.
Below is a table of our rents (not including Service Charges) as at 31st March 2012:
| Property size | Average Fair Rent | Average Assured Rent | Max New Assured Rent |
| Bedsit | £53.02 | £58.77 | |
| 1 Bed | £61.76 | £63.98 | £70.97 |
| 2 Bed | £67.04 | £74.02 | £86.96 |
| 3 Bed | £77.22 | £82.17 | £95.40 |
| 4 Bed plus | £96.69 | £88.51 | £103.84 |
