Notice To Tenants: Service Charges

During March tenants will have received notification of the increase in rent for 2014/15 and changes to the annual service charge for those schemes where communal services are provided. Service charges are set to cover those additional services provided within schemes such as cleaning; lighting; heating etc in communal areas but also covers communal repairs; repairs and replacement of laundry equipment; servicing of door entry systems; fire alarms and emergency lighting. These charges are specific to individual schemes and are reviewed each year and set to cover the actual costs incurred in providing these services. Consequently, some charges will go up while others come down, highlighting that the charge is set to only cover the actual costs of the services that have been incurred in each scheme. In all cases service charges are eligible for Housing Benefit and tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit dont need to do anything further on this as we have shared these new charges for 2014/15 with the Housing Executive.

Details of service charges in individual schemes have also been shared with the Tenants Executive but if any tenants require any further detail or explanation of the charge set for their particular scheme they can send an e-mail to info@helmhousing.org and request a copy of service charge breakdown. In the future, we plan to include details of the service charge along with the notification of rent increase at end of February each year.
 

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