Social Housing rent in credit

thelibrarian11

Hi, the rent on my social housing association tenancy is in credit by close to £1000. I don't know how this happened, I think it's something like there's rent free weeks that we've always just carried on paying the DD through over the years. Can I get this back, or do they just keep it in case I can't pay at some point in the future?

dimbo61

You need to speak to your housing association and ask for a refund.

Jude57

I'm surprised that your social landlord hasn't automatically refunded this to you. I worked in local government finance and several times a year we ran enquiries to identify credit balances We then checked whether there was an outstanding benefit claim or any other money owed to the Council, and if all was ok we refunded the credit. I can assure you that we didn't hold on to the credit 'just in case' a customer stopped paying - which was very frustrating on the odd occasion an habitual non-payer had a credit balance, usually due to a late benefit claim, as we knew they wouldn't pay regularly going forward!

Just for info, there used to be 4 'rent free' weeks each financial year, where rents were not collected but these have mostly been phased out with most rent now paid electronically, calendar monthly.

Give your housing officer a call and get a refund sorted or a written explanation as to why not.

maisie_cat

My sister overpays her rent and has done for years, then she takes a payment holiday, usually at Christmas. Depending on where you live £1000 can't be much more than a couple of months rent so that might be easier than asking for a refund.

thelibrarian11

Get in, thanks everyone

thelibrarian11

They're phoning me next week to arrange refund, hooray!