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Pay your Rent

Problems paying your rent?

Advice and Assistance

Rent Arrears Policy

Pay your Rent

Your rent and other charges are due a month in advance with the date stipulated on your contract. Payment at any other time must be agreed with a member of our accounts team.

There are a number of ways in which you can organise payment:

Direct Debit

Payment by Direct Debit can be made either weekly or monthly on a Monday or the 1st monthly. To take up this service please contact Income Management for a mandate.

By phone

You will need to have your payment card and a debit or credit card ready, as well as your customer reference number (you can find this at the top of your statement). When you have made your payment, you will be given a payment reference number and an authorisation code. Please write this information down and keep as proof that you have paid.

Online

Visit the Allpay website at  www.allpayments.net  where you can pay online using a debit or credit card. You will need your payment card and your debit or credit card to do this. You will also need a personal email address where the confirmation that your payment has been received, will be sent.

Standing order

You can pay your rent and other charges using a standing order arrangement through your bank. This can be paid monthly in advance. You will need to tell your bank each time your rent and/or other charges change, so they can pay us the correct amount. Please agree with us the amount, property reference number and the date you want to pay, before you set up the standing order. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact us on info@stonelodgegroup.com and ask us for a form.

By post

We accept cheques or postal orders. You must cross them (draw two parallel lines down the middle and write 'Account payee only' between the two lines). Please make sure you write your customer reference number on the back of your cheque or postal order. You should also attach a note explaining what the payment is for.

Problems paying your rent?

If you have a problem paying your rent – don’t bury your head in the sand and don’t panic!!!

Please contact us straight away ay info@stonelodgegroup.com

We will make every effort to assist you to ensure that you are able to pay your rent and clear any rent arrears that may have built up.

We can offer you

• free confidential advice at our offices, a home visit or venue local to you, or over the phone.
• lunchtime appointments or evening appointments between 5pm and 7pm to see your Housing Officer.
• help with completing any benefit forms or dealing with any benefits queries.
• free benefits check to see if you can claim any more assistance.
• a number of convenient ways of paying your rent.
• assistance to pay your arrears back in instalments if you cannot clear them in full.

For more information please ask us for a copy of our 'Problems paying your rent?' leaflet which is available from our offices.

Rent Advice and assistance

There are a variety of ways that you can get further advice and assistance with paying your rent.

You can get free independent advice about benefits from our Support Worker or from your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

We can provide help with:

• filling in benefit forms;
• assess entitlement to benefit; and
• appeals about decisions made about your benefit (if you do not agree with the amount you have been awarded).

If you want to speak to our Support Worker, please contact us at info@stonelodgegroup.com  

If you want to find your nearest Citizens Advice Bureau visit their website via www.citizensadvice.org.uk

Don’t forget we offer a number of ways you can pay your rent.

Our rent arrears policy

Our rent arrears policy states that we will

• Maximise our rental income so that our financial obligations can be met.
• Prevent rent arrears whenever possible by ensuring that tenants are aware of their obligation to pay rent.
• Provide tenants with appropriate advice and assistance.
• Use eviction as a last resort.

First stage

We will contact you when your first payment is missed or late. You will be given 7 days to make contact with us or to make the payment up.

Second stage

If you do not contact us or clear the rent arrears, we will visit you or telephone you.

Third stage

If you do not contact us or clear the arrears you will be sent a final warning letter, before we start legal action to recover the rent arrears owing.

Legal Action

At this stage we will serve a Notice of Seeking Possession. This is a legal notice giving you 14 days to pay the rent arrears outstanding, or the matter will then be passed to the court to start possession proceedings.

We may also consider applying to the court for an attachment of earnings order to deduct any rent arrears owed to us directly from your wages.

If we are applying for legal action we will contact you and you will receive conformation from the court. It is important that you attend court to put your point of view. You will have to pay the legal costs of the case.

If you do not keep up payments after a court order has been made, we will ask for the possession order to be enforced. The court bailiffs will visit you at home and let you know when you have to leave.

A leaflet about these processes is available from our offices.