Rent increases
From 1 April 2024, the cost of renting a home from us will increase by 7.7%, unless you have a shared ownership tenancy, the increase will be based on the terms in your lease agreement.
If you are an Ongo tenant, you will receive a letter by the end of February, confirming the increase that applies to you and your home.
While we recognise the current climate and inflation beginning to return to more manageable levels, the 7.7% increase from April 2024 will enable the continuation of services, our investment in existing homes and keep a strong development programme along with meeting our energy efficiency requirements.
Since 2015, CPI (the Consumer Price Index inflation measure) has risen by 30.3% to November 2023. However, in total since then rents have not kept pace with this, increasing by 20.12%.
This means the cost of running our organisation and delivering core services has increased considerably. We must generate enough income to remain viable and continue to operate.
We will be looking to work more efficiently to reduce our costs and generate further income to balance this and bridge the gap between the rent increase and level of inflation.
We completely understand and appreciate that the cost of living is affecting you personally too. We’re seeing increased costs in most areas of our lives, and we know this is extremely difficult to manage.
We do have lots of support available for this, from grants to financial support and budgeting advice. We’ve also recently signed up to Housing Perks to give tenants the chance to access exclusive savings and discounts.
The information below explains more on why we have had to increase the cost of rent:
Our running costs have increased, meaning to be able to continue to operate and offer all of our services – including repairs & maintenance and housing management, we need more income
Materials have also increased in cost, which has again had a knock on effect to us and means to be able to continue to be able to offer you our services
We’re continuing to invest more than ever on safety and compliance to ensure you feel safe and secure in your home
With this increase, we still remain more affordable than privately renting a home. On average it costs around £178.00 per week (calculated over 48 weeks) for a three bedroom, private rent home in the Scunthorpe area. By comparison our rent would amount to £105.34 for a social rent home (excluding service charges) and £135.96 for a three bedroom affordable home, making our options £72 (social) and £42 (affordable) per week cheaper than the private sector.
The ‘rent standard’ set by the government came into action from 1 April 2020, which meant housing associations like ourselves can increase our rents by up to CPI (the Consumer Price Index inflation measure) plus 1%. CPI at September 2023 was 6.7%, meaning that we are able to increase our rents to 7.7% in April.
This decision was made after consulting with Community Voice (our tenant panel) and presenting their feedback to our Board.
Everyone will receive a letter in the post by the end of February, with details about the change in rent costs and any additional service charges for the year ahead.
If you have any questions, please check out the Q&A’s below and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, please get in touch with us.
53 week rent week
There will be 53 Mondays in the new financial year which starts on 1 April 2024. This happens every 5 or 6 years and when 1 April is a Monday. This is because there aren’t exactly 52 weeks in a 365 day year. This means there will be 49 payable weeks that need to be paid.
If you receive Housing Benefit your weekly entitlement will be covered for this week, however if you receive Universal Credit or pay your own rent this extra weeks will need to be paid by you. See more information below on the impact of this if you claim Universal Credit.
Q&A’s
With the cost of inflation since 2015 being significantly higher than we’ve raised rent, we have to continue to generate income to remain viable and operate so we can still deliver services, invest in existing homes and keep a strong development programme along with meeting our energy efficiency requirements.
If you’re struggling with your rent payments, get in touch with us and can help. We have a specially trained, friendly and understanding team to offer guidance and advice. We can help to access benefits and grants you may be eligible for, help with budgeting, debt and money advice, and put you in touch with support you may need.
More information on this can be found here: www.ongo.co.uk/help-with-finances.
Or, you may prefer to take some independent advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau (0800 144 8848, www.citizensadvice.org.uk) or National Debtline (0808 808 4000, www.nationaldebtline.org)
You will need to update your DWP journal with the new amount on or immediately after 1 April 2024. If you don’t do this you may not get all the housing element you are entitled to. This is something that can only be done by you. It’s important that you don’t do this before 1 April 2024 as we are unable to verify the details until then and you would have to re-submit the information again.
What: If you are in receipt of Universal Credit Housing Element you will notice that on the financial year 2024/2025 there is a weeks’ rent which will not be covered by DWP, leaving you liable for that additional 1 weeks’ rent.
Why: DWP convert weekly rent into a monthly rent, they always assume a 52-week rent year – i.e converting 364 days (7 X 52), but there aren’t exactly 52 weeks in a year. Each year has 365 days (except a leap year which has 366), this means a Universal Credit Claimant is required every year to pay 1 days rent themselves which will not be covered by DWP, every 5/6 years this catches up to the equivalent of 1 weeks rent.
If you are a tenant that receives 4 non chargeable rent weeks each financial year you will still be impacted, why? Because the calculation DWP use is (7 X 48) split across 12 equal payments, this will mean week 49 will not be covered by DWP.
When: You will notice the “additional week” being applied to your rent account on 24th March 2025.
Spread the cost: if you act now, you can prevent arrears on your account by splitting one weeks rent over the financial year, this will mean you are paying little and often rather than a lump sum payment at the end of the year.
For anyone finding themselves struggling with the cost of living and worried about money or debts, we are here to help, we have a list of support available to look at maximising your income, ensuring that you have access to all the benefits you are entitled to, free and confidential debt support just to name a few.
Please scan the QR code to see our full list of available support.
We are legally obliged to notify all tenants of the changes to their rent charges. It will show you all the charges for your property and what the amount currently is and what it will change to from April 2024.
No, we will notify the relevant Benefits Team of your rent and service charges for the new financial year. They will re-calculate your claim and you will receive a letter directly from them to advise you of your new entitlement.
If you have a change in your circumstances you must inform the Benefit Section immediately to avoid any overpayments of Housing Benefit.
All tenants are issued with a rent payment card which can be used to make payments at any Post Office or PayPoint outlet across the country. You can order a replacement card through the “My Rent” section on My Home. There are also many other ways you can your rent, see the details on your rent notification letter.
You can pay your rent to us via debit or credit card using our automated telephone payment service.
To use this service, just follow these steps
- You will need you AllPay payment card reference number which is on your rent notification letter
- Call us on 01724 279900
- Press 1 to make a payment and follow the instructions
You don’t need to do anything, we will be re-calculating your Direct Debit over the next few weeks. If we need to change your payments you will receive a letter from Allpay later in March to confirm your new payments.
You will need to change the amount you pay with your bank directly, we are unable to make these changes for you.
If you would prefer for us to make the changes to your payments and notify you, you will need to change your payment method to Direct Debit. Further details are shown on your rent notification letter.
The details on the letter are directly from our Housing computer system. If the details are wrong or there are any spelling errors, please contact us so we can look into this and get it resolved for you.
Communal electricity service charges are calculated based on the cost Ongo must pay for electricity, in order to recover the cost of electricity used and no more. Despite going through a competitive tender process to find the cheapest electricity contract, the global energy crisis means that the price that Ongo now pays for electricity is significantly higher than in previous years. We therefore must increase communal electricity service charges to reflect these increases in costs. For some properties, the cost of electricity has risen by so much that we have taken the decision to cap the increase in service charge to £2 per week in order to limit the impact on those tenants most affected.
The decision has been made to increase garage rents by 7.7% which is CPI + 1% from 1 April 2024. Our garage rents have not been increased since 2016/17. The new weekly garage rates will be £8.62 for tenants and £10.34 (£8.62 + VAT) for private tenants. You will receive a notification letter in March to confirm this.
It was decided back in early 2020 to no longer charge rent for the store sheds from April 2020. This is still in place and there will be no charge from April 2024 either. You will receive a notification letter later in March to confirm this.
