Consultation

Proposed Rent Increase 2025/26

This is the time of year when we start working on our budgets for the next financial year, starting in April 2025, and, as a key part of that, we're starting our consultation with our tenants on what level of rent is set from 1 April 2025. The law requires us to do this every year.

How will we set your rent for next year?

As you know, Wellhouse Housing Association is a charity which exists to provide good quality homes at affordable rents. We will always do our best to keep your rents as low as possible.

However, like your own household costs, our business costs also increase, so we need to balance a decision that allows us to meet our current costs and meet our projected future liabilities, as well as meet our legal obligations to you.

It is important that our consultation with you finds the right balance between rent affordability and the need to maintain our services and continue investing in our homes. This includes things like replacing kitchens and bathrooms and further improving the energy efficiency of our homes to help limit your energy costs.

Our Business Plan and long-term financial planning assumes an inflation base rate plus 1% increase until 2029 -30. We plan higher than inflation because there continues to be higher levels of cost increases in the construction sector and pay increases are currently higher than inflation.

What should you do next?

We have set out information below on the proposed level of rent increase we are considering for next year. We hope you will reply to let us know what you think.

Proposed Options for 2025/26 Rent Increase

Given the current rate of inflation of 2.3% as of October 2024, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), we are proposing to increase rents by a minimum of 3.3%.  

Option 1 Flat Rate Increase of 3.3%

This level of increase will generate an additional £125,311 of rental income and would allow Wellhouse to meet all of its obligations currently included in the Business Plan. This would also allow us to continue with planned maintenance programs and investing in replacement kitchens, bathrooms and windows.

Option 2 Increase of 4.3%

This level of increase will generate an additional £163,376 of rental income and would allow Wellhouse to meet all of its obligations currently included in the Business Plan. This would also allow us to continue with planned maintenance programs and investing in replacement kitchens, bathrooms and windows. Additional investment will allow us to prioritise the environmental works required to enable the estate to look as good as possible.

What does this mean for my rent?

The following table illustrates the impact of both options on our average 

rents:

Apartment size	Avg. monthly charge 24/25	3.3% increase	Monthly increase	4.3% increase	Monthly increase
2apt	£345.98	£357.40	£11.42	£360.86	£14.88
3apt	£381.80	£394.40	£12.60	£398.22	£16.42
4apt	£426.21	£440.27	£14.06	£444.54	£18.33
5apt +	£471.31	£486.86	£15.55	£491.58	£20.27

 

Please note that these averages are based on the range of existing monthly charges per apartment size, so may not match the rent you will have to pay.

The table below lets you see how our average weekly rent in 2023/24 (the latest available figures) compares with other housing associations.

Comparator	Average Weekly Rent
Wellhouse	£87.31
Associations of similar size and operating context (Peer group)	£90.95
Easterhouse landlords’ group (EHRA)	£84.60
All Registered Social Landlords	£109.24

 

The table below lets you see how our rent increase applied for 2024/5 and how this compares with other housing associations.

Comparator	Average Rent Increase
Wellhouse	5.70%
Associations of similar size and operating context (Peer group)	5.96%
Easterhouse landlords’ group (EHRA)	5.60%
All Registered Social Landlords	6.16%

 

What will my rent be spent on?

Supporting our Tenants and our Community

Wellhouse currently employ a full time Welfare Rights Officer. This year we secured an award of £25,000 from the Social Housing Fuel Support Fund. This funding helped 349 tenants in fuel crisis or in need of energy debt relief insecurity. All recipients were offered benefit assistance.  

From January 2024 until now, we supported 183 tenants with income advice, helping them secure £1,488,750 of financial gains. Additionally, we assisted tenants to claim Universal Credit Housing Costs of £201,822 and secured £125,520 in discretionary housing costs and housing benefit awards.

Our Investment Priorities for 2025/26

A rent increase of 3.3% would allow us to spend around £654,000 on capital investment, allowing us to continue to invest in your homes.

While a 3.3% rent increase allows us to progress with our planned maintenance programme, an increase of 4.3% will allow some dedicated funds towards improving the appearance of the estate.

We trust the above information is useful in helping you form a view on our proposals but if you require any further information, please let us know.

Please let us know your thoughts.

To make this as easy as possible for you, we have included within our Winter newsletter, a survey form for you to complete and return to us by post. The survey form can also be found here. You can post it into the box attached to the gates at The Hub if you prefer.

For those who prefer to communicate with us by text we will issue a short survey for you to complete and those who prefer using e-mail can request that the survey be sent to you for return to the e-mail address we have recorded for you.

You can also telephone us and leave your comments – you can contact your Housing Officer.

We will also be holding a Christmas Café where a hot drink, biscuits and festive mince pies will be available for free. This will be on Friday 13 December 2024 between 10am and 12noon. You can complete rent consultation forms at this time.

All surveys that are returned will be entered into a free prize draw and 2 lucky winners will receive a £25 voucher.

Please note surveys must be returned to us by Friday 17th January 2025.

Please take the opportunity to return a survey with your views to us, using the method most suitable to you.

Please also be assured that your views are important to us. Rent levels obviously affect all our tenants, which is why we need as many of you as possible to take the time to respond.

Your responses will be considered by the Management Committee prior to a final decision being made on this matter, at their meeting on 29 January 2025. We will let you know the outcome of the rent increase consultation, as soon as possible after this via our website.

If you are worried about paying your rent, please get in touch with us straight away, so we can talk about how we can help.