Decision details

Date of Decision:

03 March 2023

Decision Maker:

(Including Job Title)

Ian Spicer

Strategic Director, Adult Care, Housing and Public Health

Specific Delegation:

(If any)

Council Meeting 22 January 2020, agenda item 12:

4.     That all Affordable Rent properties be revalued in October and March each year to provide a valid rent value for when Affordable Rent properties are relet.

Brief Description of Decision:

To set Affordable Rents for council properties for the purpose of lettings to new tenants at the same value as Affordable rents charged to existing tenants for 2023/24.  This is a 7% increase against the 2022/23 Affordable rent value and therefore the same as the increase for social rents (subject to a separate Council decision).

The Council has 223 existing Affordable rent properties.  The decision will not impact on the Affordable rent value for existing tenants.  It will impact new tenants when the property is re-let. 

Reasons for the Decision:

Government Legislation dictates that Affordable rents must be re-assessed every time that an Affordable rent property is re-let to a new tenant to ensure that the Affordable rent remains no higher than 80% of the market rent for a similar property in that location. 

At the Council meeting on 22 January 2020 it was agreed that this would be achieved by undertaking an assessment of all Affordable rent properties bi-annually, rather than having individual valuations each time the property became vacant.  Agenda item 12, Recommendation 4:

That all Affordable Rent properties be revalued in October and March each year to provide a valid rent value for when Affordable Rent properties are relet.

To meet this requirement a desktop exercise is undertaken in March and October each year to review whether the current Affordable rent value charged to existing tenants for each property remains within 80% of the market rent for similar properties in the Borough.

The exercise in February 2023 has concluded that based on market rent average values on Hometrack for Rotherham the actual current Affordable rents for 2023/24 are within 80% of market rent values and will be used as the re-let value for these properties.

Details of alternative options considered and rejected:

Increase affordable rents for re-let properties by CPI+1% to match the normal approach taken for formula rent. This would result in an 11.1% increase.  This is not recommended as it would result in the rents for some properties on re-let being higher than 80% of Market rents.  This would not meet Government policy for Affordable rent values at re-let.

Conflicts of interest declared by any Executive Member consulted by the decision maker which relates to the decision:

No conflicts of interest declared.

Dispensations Granted:

(If any)

N/A.

Reports or parts of reports considered

HRA Rents and Charges Cabinet report – 13^th February 2023.  Paragraph 2.1.7