RSLs call for more leeway in setting rents

15 Jun 09
Housing associations should have more flexibility over the rents they charge tenants, large social landlords claimed this week.

By Neil Merrick

Housing associations should have more flexibility over the rents they charge tenants, large social landlords claimed this week.

Housing associations should have more flexibility over the rents they charge tenants, large social landlords claimed this week.

Although rents should continue to be based on local market prices, they should also reflect the size and quality of homes, as well as services provided by social landlords, said a report by five of the largest RSLs in England.

Homes for tomorrow, published on April 7 by associations in the Housing Futures Network, said government grants would continue to subsidise rents so that tenants paid less than those with private landlords.

But housing benefit should be brought into the mainstream benefits system so that it provided less of a disincentive to work.

Keith Exford, chief executive of the Affinity Sutton group, said the associations were proposing radical changes to the way government and social landlords fund and manage existing homes and the options available to residents.

‘Tenants should define the range and standards of services available to them, with a pricing structure to match,’ he added.

The report advocated more opportunity for tenants to move between social and market renting, and between shared and full ownership. There could be a new ‘intermediate’ form of tenancy, allowing people to ‘trade’ up and down. Other proposals included encouraging new investors to fund affordable housing via a residential Real Estate Investment Trust model.

The report also called for more consistent regulation so that housing associations faced a similar burden to private organisations that receive public funds.

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