Arrears

Can I make a full payment to stop my eviction?

Yes you can. Please contact us immediately and ask to speak to an income officer, who will discuss how this is possible.

Do you provide a debt advice service for residents?

Yes, we can provide advice from various independent debt advice agencies, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau and Staying First. Our Income team can arrange an appointment with these are free services for you. Please contact us for further information.

How can I stop the bailiff from carrying out my rent arrears eviction?

If the bailiff is there and the warrant has not been executed yet, you would need to contact us and clear all arrears and any outstanding costs.

What happens if I receive a Notice of Seeking Possession (NOSP) due to rent arrears?

Please try and clear the full balance in your account and contact your Income officer immediately.

Failure to respond to the NOSP or make full payment, may result in an application being made to the County Court to seek possession of your home.

What is a court order?

During a possession hearing a judge can grant a court order which instructs you to make payments to us to clear your rent arrears. If this order is breached you may face eviction from your home.

What is a Notice of Seeking Possession (NOSP)?

This is a legal document which is served by our Income team to a customer in rent arrears.

The Notice of Seeking Possession is the first step in our legal process to seek possession of your home due to rent arrears.

What is a stay hearing?

If you receive an eviction date you can make an application to the County Court to have your eviction cancelled or suspended.

The court will then grant you a hearing date which is known as a ‘stay hearing’. These hearings will generally take place before your scheduled eviction date.

Benefits

Do you work with the council about housing benefit or council tax fraud?

Yes, we will work with the council to help prevent housing benefit or council tax fraud.

How often are housing benefit payments made?

Generally, housing benefit make payments every four weeks (in arrears). However there are some cases where housing benefit may make payments fortnightly.

What is an alternative payment arrangement?

If you’re having problems paying your rent from your universal credit payment, you can ask for the rent to be paid directly to Peabody as your landlord. This is known as an alternative payment arrangement.

What is the benefit cap amount?

The benefit cap amount is different depending on your personal circumstances, and on whether you live in, or outside of London.

What is the benefit cap?

The benefit cap is the maximum amount of benefits that a household can receive and applies only to people of working age.

What is the under occupation charge or bedroom tax?

The under occupation charge is also known in the media as the ‘bedroom tax’.

It is is the reduction of Housing Benefit entitlement if you have a ‘spare bedroom’: If you have one spare bedroom your benefit will be cut by 14% and if you have two or more spare bedrooms you will lose 25%.

This charge only affects working age people and doesn’t apply to pensioners.

Each person or couple within the household will have a bedroom. Children under 16 of the same gender are expected to share. Children under 10 are expected to share even if they are of different gender.

What is Universal Credit?

Universal credit (UC) is a single monthly payment for people in or out of work, which merges together six working age benefits. You will receive one single monthly payment, paid directly into your bank account in arrears. There is also a minimum six week wait for the first payment.

What should I do if my housing benefit claim has been cancelled, or suspended?

Please contact your local authority to find out why it has been stopped, and what you need to do to restore your housing benefit.

Then, please contact our Income team to advise them of this suspension or cancellation of housing benefit, as it can result in your rent account falling into arrears.

Our income team will support you and advise on any actions that need to be taken regarding your housing benefit and your rent account.

Make a payment

Can I change the date my direct debit comes out?

Yes. Please contact us and one of our Customer Hub advisors will be happy to help.

Can I make a payment to a rent account for someone else?

Yes, we will accept a payment from someone who is not the account holder. However, for data protection reasons we cannot disclose any information to you regarding the account.

Can I pay my rent in cash?

Unfortunately, we cannot accept rent payments in cash at our offices.

However, you can pay cash at a Paypoint location. Please remember to  take your rent card with you when paying at a Paypoint location.

Please note payments made in this way will take up to three working days to show in your  rent account.

Can you send me a direct debit form?

Download and fill in the Direct Debit form – PDF 277KB.

Once you have filled it in you can send to us online or by post.

Do I get an email receipt if I make a rent payment?

You can request an email receipt if you make a payment over the phone. Email receipts are not currently sent automatically.

How can I set up a direct debit to pay my rent?

The best way to set up a direct debit is by phone.

You can also set up a direct debit by completing a form. If you would like us to post you a copy of the form, please contact us.

Please note it may take up to 14 days for the direct debit to be set up. If your payment is due before then, you can make a payment over the phone by calling us on 0300 456 2099.

How do I cancel a direct debit?

You can request for your direct debit to be cancelled by contacting us. We also recommend that you contact your bank to cancel your direct debit instruction.

How do I change how often I make a rent payment?

Rent is due in advance. You can pay weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

However, if you have a court order or agreement in place on your rent account you’ll need to speak to our Income team before making any changes to when you pay. 

Rent

Can I check my rent account or arrears online?

No, at present this is not a service that we offer.

You can contact us for a rent statement at any time. Please contact us and we can give you the information once we have asked you the required security questions.

Can I print my own rent statement?

At present you cannot print your rent statement. However, you can request a copy by contacting us.

Once we have asked our standard security questions we can email this to you.

When contacting us please let us know for what time period you would like a rent statement for.

Can you email me a rent statement?

Yes, we can. However, as we'll be sending you personal information, we will need to complete standard security checks before we can email this information to you.

Please contact us so that we can verify your information and send you a statement.

From how far back can I have a rent statement from?

You can get a rent statement from 2004 or from the start of your tenancy if you moved in after this date.

How do I set up a direct debit over the phone?

Contact us with your bank account details and we can arrange this for you.

We’ll need to ask our standard security questions to make sure that we’re keeping your account details safe. We’ll then need to check that both the rent account and the account from which the rent payment will be taken are in your name.

Our checks will only take a few minutes, after which we’ll have your direct debit set up.

When will the direct debit start once I have set it up over the phone?

We need to allow for 10 days before the first direct debit payment can be taken. This is to allow us to send you a copy of the direct debit agreement which gives you a chance to check the details before we take any payments.

If you need to make a payment before this, you can make a payment over the phone.

How long does it take to process a refund?

Once we receive a request for a refund, it can take up to ten working days for the refund to be processed and for funds to be paid into the customer’s bank account.

If my rent account is in credit, can I request a refund?

You can request a refund if you’ve made an overpayment to your rent account. But you can’t request a refund if you receive housing benefit and they’ve made the overpayment.

Refund requests need to be done in writing. You can do this online or by post.

Please note we would not refund all of the credit, a week’s (if you pay weekly or a month if you pay monthly) rent will be deducted from the refund to keep your account in credit as per the terms of your Tenancy Agreement.

What are the different ways that I can pay my rent?

There are many ways for you to pay your rent. Learn more on our how to pay your rent page.

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