The Housing Executive has confirmed its annual rent increase charges which are set to come into place from April.
In a statement, the organisation said it will be contacting its tenants over the coming weeks about their annual rent charges – which will increase by 2.7% from 7th April.
This equates to an increase of £2.16 on the average weekly rent and will bring the average rent for a Housing Executive home to £82.05 a week, excluding rates.
Each tenant will receive a letter over the next few weeks advising of their new rent charges, and what they need to do.
The amount charged is down from last year when the rent increase was 7.7% – an average of £5.72 per week.
Housing Executive chief executive Grainia Long said: “Rent pays for essential high-quality customer and neighbourhood services as well as ongoing maintenance of our homes and significant improvement work.
“The increase goes straight back into our houses and our tenant services.
“We plan to spend over £287m next year in improving and maintaining our homes, this is an increase of £37m on last year, with more than a quarter of our homes being upgraded with work programmes.
“Importantly, £49m of this will go to installing new energy efficient measures in over 10,000 of our homes.
“We understand that any increase in rent may be challenging for some tenants and we have a dedicated financial inclusion team to ensure we have right support in place.
“We encourage any tenant who is having difficulty paying their rent, to contact us immediately for assistance and advice.
“We would also reassure tenants that we will only take legal action in circumstances where rent is not fully paid and a tenant refuses to engage with us.
“We have included details of how to get in touch and the help available in our letter to each tenant.”
Approximately 80% of Housing Executive tenants in Northern Ireland receive full or partial Housing Benefit support or Universal Credit towards their rent.