Paying your Rent

It is important to pay your rent in full and on time. The Society does not have other sources of income to maintain our properties and provide our services. Paying your rent is also a legal responsibility that you agreed to at the start of your tenancy.

If you are having trouble paying your rent, ask us for help and advice as early as you can. This will help prevent debts building up, and we can also advise you generally about other financial difficulties, debts or bills that you may be worried about.

Methods for Paying your Rent

Standing Order

Set up a Standing Order, either by using your own online banking or asking your bank to set it up for you.

Pay Online

Use your online banking to make a payment. You can set up a regular payment to ensure that payments are not accidentally delayed.

By Cheque

You can pay by cheque, but your bank may charge you a fee. Online or standing order payments are much more efficient methods.

With Cash

Cash is not a recommended method of payment in most cases. Please get in touch with us if you would like to pay by cash.

You can choose from a range of payment methods. For all of these, you are in control of the payment; the Society does not automatically collect the payment from you or your bank. If you are not sure which method is right for you, please ask us to help you decide.

For all methods, if you are not sure how often you need to pay, or would like to have some alternative choices of dates and amounts to help you pay more easily, please ask us.

If you need to know the Society’s bank account details so that you can arrange a payment, please ask us.

You can ask us for a printed statement of your rent account whenever you wish. Just allow us a few days to process and produce this for you. Statements will show your rent charge (which is made weekly), and the payments you have made.

Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, Other Welfare Payments

If you receive the housing element of Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, or other welfare payments intended to help towards your housing costs, it is your responsibility to make sure you use these to pay your rent. You must still pay your full rent even if your benefit is not enough to cover the full amount. If your benefit is paid directly to the Society on your behalf, you will still be responsible for paying any rent not covered by the benefit amount. Remember to tell the benefit authority if your circumstances change; if too much benefit is paid for you, you will have to pay it back.

When to Pay

Make sure you know when your rent is due to be paid. This may not be the same time as your neighbour or another tenant. Ask us if you are not sure. Your rent due dates are based on your tenancy agreement. Unless you have one of our oldest tenancy agreements, your rent is due in advance – this means it is due at or before the start of the week, not at the end of the week.

If you would like to have some alternative choices of payment dates and amounts to help you pay more easily, please ask us.

Helpful Links

Society staff can advise you about most rent and debt concerns you may have. If you are having difficulty paying your rent or have already got behind with payments, please talk to us as soon as you can so that we can help you resolve the difficulty.

You can also find useful information from the following websites:

How to deal with rent arrears

Learn more

Benefit Calculator

Learn more

Dealing with rent arrears in social housing

Learn more

Help with debt

Learn more

Have an Enquiry?

Need to get in touch? Got an idea for how we can improve our services? Want find out more information about Winchester Housing Society? Contact us we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Submit a Repair Request

Do you have a maintenance issue you wish to submit? Use the repair request form to submit details of your issue so we can make sure the right person is sent to deal with the problem.

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