Your social rent

How your rent is calculated if you are on an assured or assured shorthold tenancy.

Are you a shared owner?

Your rent is calculated differently – find out how it’s calculated.

How your social rent is set

If your tenancy started after 15 January 1989 you will have an assured or assured shorthold tenancy, and your rent is set using the policy below.

Since April 2002, the government has taken a major role in setting rents for tenants of housing associations and local authorities. The aim of this has been to ensure that rents for similar properties in similar areas are consistent. The Regulator of Social Housing’s Rent Standard 2020 outlines requirements and guidance for landlords in setting rent.

The guidance says that for a property:

20%-40% of the rent will be based on property value
60%-80% of the rent will be based on relative local earnings
The number of bedrooms will have an impact on the rent
The landlord can add 5% if required for its general needs accommodation and 10% for its supported housing
Individual rents increase annually by inflation (previous September’s Consumer Price Index, or CPI) plus 1% from April 2020

Rent increases from 1 April 2025

CPI for the year was 1.7%. This means your rent may increase by up to 2.7%. This does not include your service charge – this is calculated seperately.

This is 1% above CPI because the Rent Standard says we may increase CPI by +1% each year.

We will send you a letter explaining how much your new charges are for the upcoming year.

If you pay rent by Direct Debit

We will automatically adjust this for you so you’re paying the correct amount.

You will receive a separate letter from Allpay detailing the new charge from April 2025.

Please check this against your new charges letter to ensure that the correct amount is paid from April.

If you need to amend or set up a Direct Debit

Call us on 0203 535 3535 Monday-Friday, 8am-6pm.

If you want to set up a Direct Debit, you will need to have a bank or building society account that accepts Direct Debits. You’ll also need your:

MTVH payment reference – this will be on any letters or statements we’ve sent you
Name and address
Bank’s name and address
Account number and sort code

Rent reviews

We give all tenants at least one month’s notice of any rent increase. Rents for assured tenants go up most years in April (or May in some cases).

Service charges

In addition to rent, many tenants are required to pay a service charge.

A service charge is the money you pay for the cost of services and repairs to shared parts of your building.

Appeals about your rent

If you are not happy with the increase in your total rent (including the service charge), most tenants can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). This is an independent body that will recommend a market rent based on the rents charged by private landlords in the area. The appeal must reach the First-tier Tribunal before the rent increase is due.

The Tribunal cannot decide whether the rent (excluding service charge) is correctly increased under the Rent Standard.

Find out more about appealing your rent on GOV.UK.

Rent setting policy

Our policy provides more information about how we set rent and the standards we hold ourselves to.

Read our rent setting policy (PDF).

Contact us

If you have any questions, please contact us online.

Financial advice and support

We can help you with things like:

Making a budget.
Reducing your expenses.
Getting grants from the Government and other organisations.

Get help with the cost of living

This page was last updated in February 2025.