Wellhouse Housing Association has fundamentally restructured its rent setting following a consultation with tenants.

In May 2016, Wellhouse tenants asked the Association to review rent charges to ensure that they charged fair and consistent rents for their properties.

Rather than 73 different rents, Wellhouse will have 11 rent charges from April 2017. Some rents will increase whilst others will decrease.

The changes to rents will be gradually introduced over a three year period rather than an immediate implementation, to minimise the impact on tenants.

Chair Maureen Morris said: “Over many years our rent charges had created a position of 73 different rents for 11 different property types. Our tenants agreed that this was unfair and that we needed a rent structure that was fair, consistent and transparent with fewer variances. They asked us to resolve this issue.

“In 2016/17, extensive consultation was carried out. Following this detailed review, tenants agreed the basis for rent setting would be on a simple property size and property type basis. In parallel, an affordability study was conducted, to give us comfort that our rent charges remained affordable for our tenants.”