Tenancy Policy - Rent charges

Norwich City Council would like your views on some changes we are planning to make to our tenancy policy. This involves offering new council homes at two different rent types, social and affordable.

Please be aware, if you are already a council tenant on a social rent your tenancy will remain unchanged.

By introducing affordable rent on certain new properties, we can safeguard our finances by generating more rental income. This will help us maintain and improve our existing council homes, as well as build new ones. It will also provide more affordable housing choices for our community, as the demand for housing continues to grow.

Social rent: This is our current standard rent charge which is lower than market rates usually around 50% of the market rent for a similar size property. Social rent is determined using a government formula that considers factors such as the property’s value, size and local income levels.

Affordable rent: This is the new rent charge we plan to introduce. This option would be higher than social rent, but still more affordable than private market rent. Affordable rent is usually capped at 80%.

We will set the rent to be within the Local Housing Allowance rate. The Local Housing Allowance is the maximum amount of housing benefit/Universal Credit you can get if you rent your home from a private landlord.

We’d very much like to gather your views on our plans. To take part, you just need to do a few simple things.

• Read through the proposed changes and key points
• Complete our short survey to share your thoughts

The consultation will be open until 5pm on Friday 4 October 2024.