Rent notice, understanding your rent statement and service charge statement

This year’s rent increase is 4.8% which is the consumer price index (CPI) plus 1%.

Debbie explained the following important points to remember.

If you have a weekly assured tenancy, your rent will increase from Monday 6 April 2026
If you have a monthly agreement, then the new charges will apply from 1 April 2026
If you receive housing benefit to help you pay your rent, you must let the Local Authority know of the new amount.
If you pay by standing order, please remember to increase your payments ready for the new charge.
If you receive Universal Credit you will need to update your housing costs into your journal. NOTE: you cannot do this before the new charge is live.
If you pay by direct debit, we will change this for you, and you will receive notification from ALLPAY.
If you pay a service charge, this will also change in April. The amount of increase or decrease will depend on how much was spent and collected in 2024/25 and if we expect an increase in the cost of delivering these services this year.
You will receive a breakdown of your service charge with your rent increase letter.

She also talked through understanding your rent statement and a helpful change under the heading Service Charge which will now show what charges are eligible to Housing Benefit and what charges you may need to pay.

Over the past two years the Income team have been working with customers to support all people in receipt of housing benefit to get to a position where rent is paid when due and reduce the amount the account is in arrears bit by bit.

Debbie explained 82% of customers have achieved this over time. And she urges anyone to get in touch early if they are struggling with rent payment.

‘It’s always better to reach out sooner rather than later- smaller problems are easier to fix and we don’t want you to end up in rent arrears.

Customers who receive universal credit will get a text reminder to update housing costs into their journal as this can’t be done until the new change is live.

Changes to your rent statements

This year we will only be sending out paper rent statements once a year rather than four time a year.

Increasing costs in royal mail postage over the past five years means this is expensive and we could use this money better to tailor our services and develop an app.

It will also reduce the risk of data protection issues as paper statements can go missing and we can do our bit for the planet and reduce unnecessary waste.

You’ll still:

Be able to request a paper statement from us at any time, call us on 0113 386 1000 or email us at hello@leedsfed.com .

After this statement, we’ll send the next one in August 2026 and then annually from April 2027,

One of the customers on the call was supportive of the approach and stressed the importance of still receiving or being able to request paper copies for some customers.