Rent and how to pay

• Social rent: Yes, if you’re one of our social customers this increase applies to you, and you’ll soon receive a letter explaining the changes.
• Market rent: No, if you’re one of our market rent customers this increase doesn’t apply to you.
• Rent to buy: No, if you’re one of our rent to buy customers this increase doesn’t apply to you because you signed up to pay a fixed monthly rate when you started your lease.
• Shared Ownership: Yes, if you’re one of our Shared Ownership customers this increase applies to you and you’ll soon receive a letter explaining the changes.
• Leaseholder: Yes, if you’re a Leaseholder with us the increase in service charges applies to you and you’ll soon receive a letter explaining the increase.
• Garage rent: Yes, if you’re renting a garage from us this increase applies to you and you’ll soon receive a letter explaining the changes.

Your rent will be increasing by 7.7% from 1 April 2024. We’ve written to you to tell you the new amount you will be paying from this date. Like all social housing providers, we follow the Government's guidelines on setting rents. We work it out by taking the previous September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate, which was 6.7% in September 2023, and adding 1% to it. 

In light of the increased cost of living, One Manchester’s Board has made the decision to continue to apply the discretionary cap on service charges effective from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Your new service charge reflects the cost we incur for providing services to your home and communal areas. We have calculated this cost based on what these services cost us in 2023 and we then had to increase these in line with inflation.

You will find a breakdown of your rent and service charge with your letter. 

CPI – the Consumer Price Index – is a figure used to measure inflation. It reflects how much the price of common goods and services changes over time across the UK. CPI is higher than last year because the cost of goods, and services such as energy costs, is still high, affected by global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine. As a result of this rise in CPI, the amount rents can increase under the Government formula has also gone up.

We always try to keep our rents and service charges as affordable as possible, but the costs of maintaining and repairing your homes, including labour and materials has significantly risen, due to high inflation rates and increased energy and fuel costs.

As a not-for-profit organisation, any money we make goes directly back into your homes. This increase means we can continue providing and improving our services to you. It means we can also meet the increasing costs of maintaining your homes and continue to proactively tackle any issues of damp and mould.  

During 2024-2025, we will be prioritising:  

• Continuing our investment work, repairing, and enhancing your homes, including projects to replace kitchens, bathrooms, windows, and doors. This will also include improving the exterior of your homes such as replacing fencing.
• Ensuring your home is safe by completing all necessary routine safety checks, including gas, electrical, and fire safety inspections.
• Making sure your homes are safe and healthy places to live. We’ll be investing a further £4.7m into our Healthy Homes programme to address any issues of damp, mould, and condensation in your home. We continue to encourage all customers who have damp and mould in their home to contact us so that we can deal with the issue swiftly.
• Using your feedback from the Big Listen events to improve the customer experience you receive and help shape our repairs service to make it right for you.  
• Investing in upgrading the energy efficiency of homes to help reduce energy bills.
• Continuing to invest in our Thrive Fund to support customers who may need additional support to purchase everyday items. 

We’ve got a range of customers who receive different services depending on what type of home you live in. Some customers pay rent, whilst others may own their home and pay a service charge for the ongoing upkeep and management of their building.  For example, our service charges cover the cost of extra services like heating and lighting of communal areas, particularly in blocks of flats.  

Due to the increases in national energy and utility bills, along with high levels of inflation affecting all other rising costs, we’ve had no choice but to increase these charges.    

If you do pay a service charge, then this will be clearly stated on the letter you receive from us along with a clear break down of the new amount you will be asked to pay from 1 April. 

We’re here to help! Our friendly team are always on hand to help, we want to work with you to understand any difficulties you may have in paying your rent or if you’re struggling with the rising cost of living. Just get in touch with our trained team by calling us on 0330 355 1000 and choosing option 3, or complete our contact us form.

Any action you need to take depends on how you pay your rent. Please see the information below:

• Direct debit  

You don’t need to do anything; your payment will change automatically.  

• Standing order  

You need to contact your bank and change your standing order to the new rent amount from 1 April.  

• Phone, PayPoint or any other method  

You need to change the amount of rent you pay from 1 April.  

• I receive Housing Benefit  

You don’t need to do anything as we’ll inform the Housing Benefit department of the increase. It’s important that you check your new Housing Benefit award letter, that you will receive in April, to make sure the amount is correct.  

• I receive Universal Credit  

You need to notify the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of your rent increase on 1 April through your online journal. It’s important to note that you won’t be able to let them know the rent change earlier than this date.  

You are our priority, and we will do everything we can to support you, particularly during the cost of living crisis.  

For instance, we can help with making sure you’re receiving all the financial support that you’re entitled to, including Universal Credit and Housing Benefit.  

• If you’re concerned about money or are just looking for some advice, our Financial Inclusion team can support you. The team offer support with everything from benefits applications such as housing benefit for rent costs or Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims, to offering budgeting, advice on affordable credit options and support in managing your finances better.  

There’s also lots of additional support that you can access via the advice and support pages on our website.

• Apply for support through the Thrive Fund

We’d also like to remind you of the support available through our Thrive Fund. The fund is here to support you in easing the pressure of an increased cost of living, and it can be used to support customers who may need to purchase things such as furniture, kitchen appliances, school uniforms, children’s coats, and other everyday items. 

Please get in touch with our team:

• Get in touch with our Income Team via our contact us form 
• For leaseholders, contact our Leasehold Team via our contact us form 

The decision to increase rents has been a really difficult one, especially with the rising cost of living. The increase has been set using government guidance in line with your tenancy agreement.  

We need to balance this increase with the rising costs of maintaining and repairing homes and providing quality services. As a not-for-profit organisation all income from rent is reinvested into our homes and services.  Without the rent increase, we’d have to significantly scale back the services we provide.  

If you will struggle to pay your rent with the new increase, we can support you. Please do get in touch or call our trained team on 0330 355 1000 and choose option 3 if you need help. 

Some of you may have nonchargeable weeks set out in your tenancy agreement. If you do, they will take place in the following weeks:

• The week beginning 1 April 2024 is a nonchargeable week, so these changes won’t begin until the week commencing 8 April 2024.
• The week beginning 23 December 2024 is also a nonchargeable week and no rent will be charged then.
• The week beginning 31 March 2025 is also a nonchargeable week and no rent will be charged then. (please see below for more details)

Please remember, if your account is in arrears, you still need to make a payment, during the nonchargeable weeks. 

As this year has 53 weeks instead of 52, we’ve taken the decision to provide you with an extra nonchargeable week, depending on your tenancy agreement. This means you’ll be charged 50 weeks across a 53 week year. The additional nonchargeable week begins 31 March 2025.  

However, if your account is in arrears, the benefit of a nonchargeable week won’t apply.

If you are eligible for a nonchargeable week, we’ll provide more details in the letter you receive from us. 

After a full review of our garage charges, we have taken the difficult decision to increase your garage rent from 1 April 2024. You can find more details about the increase in the letter you receive from us. Please do get in touch or call our trained team on 0330 355 1000 and choose option 3 if you need help. 

Unfortunately, your rent and service charges will also be increased. However, we’ve made the decision to cap your rent increase at 7.7% instead of 9.4%. You’ll find details of the rent you need to pay from 1 April 2024 under your shared ownership lease, and what help is available around paying your rent if you need it, in the letter you receive from us. Please do get in touch or call our trained team on 0330 355 1000 and choose option 3 if you need help.

We always try to keep our charges as affordable as possible, but the continued increases in national energy and utilities bills along with the rising costs we’re experiencing from our external suppliers have meant we’ve unfortunately had no choice but to review and increase our charges in some areas.

We’ve carefully set the service charge budget for your building using our best assessment of what we estimate will be spent on delivering our services for your home. Our estimates are based on a combination of contractor costs (including pest control, lift servicing, buildings insurance, etc.) and anticipated expenses based on what it has cost us, to deliver our day-to-day services like repairs and communal electricity, in previous years. Details of what you’ll be paying from 1 April 2024 will be enclosed with your letter.  

Your service charge is payable quarterly, but if it works better for you, you can choose to pay your service charge monthly. Just get in touch by calling our Customer Resolution Centre on 0330 355 1000 or contact our Income Team via our contact us form.  

If you’ve set up a Direct Debit and your service charge is different from last year, you don’t need to do anything, this will be amended automatically for you. If you’d like to chat to a member of our team about your Direct Debit, just send our Income Team a message via our contact us form.  

Please contact our Healthy Homes team on 0330 355 1000 and a member of the team will be in touch to arrange a survey. The survey will enable us to identify the root cause of the problem and arrange all repairs to resolve the issue.