Paying Your Rent
Your rent is the money we charge you for providing you with your home and our services to you, including repairs and maintenance.
Your rent is worked out using a differential rent system. This means that the amount of rent you pay depends on the amount of your total household income. If household income increases so does your rent, and if it decreases, the weekly rent decreases accordingly. Each county Council has its own differential rent system and your rent will be calculated using the differential rent system of the council where your home is located.
Service charges
Tenants pay service charges if they live in certain types of building where there are shared facilities or services. The charges cover:
- Repairing and maintaining the building and shared areas inside the building
- Cleaning shared areas, including windows
- Providing lighting and heating in shared areas
- Maintaining and landscaping shared gardens
- Insuring the building.
Service charges are based on the actual cost of delivering the service. We review them once a year and they may increase or decrease. You may inspect our financial records about service charges as long as you let us know beforehand.
How to pay
- Through your bank: You could set up a standing order. We will give you a form to send to your bank and we will agree how often you will pay each month. Or, you can pay whenever you want by phoning your bank or going on-line.
- By post: Send a cheque or postal order to our head office. Never send cash.
- With your Rent Card: Comhar Housing provides all tenants with a rent card that can be used at any pay point location.
- By Household Budget Scheme direct payment: Comhar Housing can arrange for your rent to be taken from your social security benefits and paid directly to us. You will then receive any remaining amount. Please contact your Housing Officer via the Comhar Housing services centre on 01 6964570 if you wish to sign up for Household Budget and they will be happy to help.
Rent Arrears
Rent arrears is the term we use for rent you have not paid us. If you do not pay your rent, you could lose your home. It is always better to pay off a small amount of what you owe with your weekly rent than pay nothing.
If your circumstances change
If your circumstances change, you must tell Comhar Housing Services Centre immediately. For example,
you may have started a new job or become unemployed, or someone else may have come to live in your home - or has left to live somewhere else. All these facts can change the amount of rent you must pay. If you don’t tell us, you could face a large bill for rent arrears. Any underpayment will be added to the amount of rent you owe us.
What to do
If you know you cannot pay your rent, please tell us straight away. Do not delay! We understand that anyone can have money trouble from time to time and we will do our best to help you. We will arrange for someone to give you advice or you can get independent advice from the Money Advice and Budgeting Service.
If you cannot pay the full amount you owe, we may make an arrangement for you to pay it off gradually. This means paying an extra amount with your weekly rent over a period of time until you have paid off all the rent you owe.
You can arrange to have your rent paid directly to us through the Household Budget Scheme.
If you don’t pay
We can take legal action against you if you do not keep to a repayment agreement and you continue to be in arrears for your rent or service charges. If you make no effort to pay off your arrears we will take action to end your tenancy.
For more information on paying your rent, please check your relevant Tenant Handbook on the documentation page here: