Rent and Rent Arrears

This leaflet explains the ways you can pay your rent and the procedures we follow if you are fall into arrears.

Ways to Pay Your Rent
Shepherds Bush Housing Association (SBHA) collects rent in the following ways:

Giro payment at any shop that is part of the Pay Point scheme, using the rent swipe card (see section below). If you do not have one call 020 8222 7300 to order one
In person at SBHA Housing Management office by debit/credit card, cash or cheque (never send cash through the post)
Phone 020 8222 7300 and use your debit/credit card to make your payment
Text message - visit www.allpay.co.uk and follow the instructions
Standing orders/Direct Debit
Housing Benefit direct
DSS direct
Via the the allpay website (www.allpay.co.uk).

If you are paying your rent at a shop that is part of the Pay Point scheme, you will be issued with a rent swipe card. On handing the card to the staff member with your rent payment you will get a computerised receipt which you can keep in a wallet provided with the card. This also means your rent payment will appear on you rent account within five working days.

For tenants on Housing Benefit, we strongly encourage you to allow the payment of Housing Benefit directly into the Association's account and will insist on this arrangement if you are over eight weeks in rent arrears.

Rent Arrears
The recovery of rent arrears is a key area of work for SBHA. Rent should always be paid weekly in advance. Rent payments represent a substantial and crucial source of income for the Association and it is important that we collect all rent due to us.

If your rent falls into arrears at any time or if we write to you about your arrears, you must:

contact the Customer Services team at the Craft Court office on 020 8563 8191 to tell us when you are going to pay your rent arrears
contact the named Income Officer on your letter to inform them of when you are going to pay your rent. This is very important in order for you to avoid court action being taken against you.

You should:

repay the rent arrears immediately if you can as we will take action where arrears are mounting and no contact is made
talk to our staff if you are having difficulty paying. You will have the chance to explain what problems you are having. We can advise on any benefits which you should be receiving and, if necessary, recommend debt counselling if for example you have a number of debts at the same time. Please ensure you talk to the Income Officer for your area, their details are available at the Craft Court Office
return as quickly as possible to regular payments of the weekly rent. Payment of the weekly rent will not clear the arrears but will stop them increasing any further. If you have not already done so, you might find it helpful to have any rent paid through benefit sent directly to us. Our staff can advise on this
reach an agreement with us as to the best way to pay your rent arrears. If you cannot pay all the arrears at once, you should work out with us with us how much extra you can pay on top of your weekly rent to reduce the arrears.

Legal Action on Rent Arrears
SBHA will not normally take legal action against tenants who are making regular and continuous efforts to clear their arrears.

Where tenants are in serious arrears, however, or where agreements to pay have not been made or have been broken, the Association will begin legal proceedings, as follows:

a Notice of Seeking Possession will be served and this is our first intention to take legal action against a tenant in arrears. A tenant has 28 days to make contact with the Association to discuss the arrears and make a firm arrangement to repay them. If, after serving the Notice, there is no contact from the tenant after 28 days, the Association will apply for a court hearing, and send the tenant a letter confirming our actions
once an application has been made, the tenant will receive a summons to appear in court. The summons will advise the tenant of the address of the Court and the reason that they are being summoned
in court, the Association will ask for a Possession Order to be granted. This gives the Association permission to begin action to evict the tenant. However, if a tenant makes an agreement at Court to repay the arrears, then the Order is suspended ie no action takes place unless the tenant fails to keep to the repayment agreement set in Court
if the tenant does not keep to the agreement specified in the Order, then the Association will begin eviction proceedings. We will only take this action if all other methods of recovering the arrears have failed, with the permission of the Association's Arrears and Evictions Sub Committee to whom the tenant has the right of appeal
Payments on Former Tenant Accounts including payments by executor of estate after Tenant's death
Garnishee orders / Attachment of earnings orders.