How your rent is set

What does my rent cover?

Your rent covers the cost of providing you with your home, and services including repairs, maintenance, offering homes and managing estates. We may charge you for warden, concierge and Supporting People services, and you may be charged for furniture, heating and garages.

How do you work it out?

We consult the tenant groups on the level of rent and service charges we will charge for the following year.

The council’s policy is to keep rents in line with the government formula for working out rent, known as ‘rent restructuring’.

Rent for your home

Restructuring aims that rent should:

be affordable in the future;
be more closely linked to the things that people value about their home, such as size, area and condition;
be similar to rent for other similar council and housing association properties; and
generally be well below rent charged by private landlords.

In 2002 the Government set a formula for rent, and a ‘target rent’ is set for your home. This is based on national average rent levels, average local earnings, the number of bedrooms in your home and the value of your home. Rent reforms are being introduced gradually over 15 years.

Each year, we apply a cost-of-living increase to your rent and an element for rent reforms.

Service charges, heating charges and garage rent

Any increases in these charges are based on the need to cover the cost of providing the service.

You can get more information on rent restructuring from: the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/133/Fairandaffordablecouncilrents_id1152133.pdf or by contacting Rents Management with any comments on 01902 554824 or by email at rentsmanagement@wolverhamptonhomes.org.uk