Home >> Paying your rent

Your rent

We collect rent payments over 50 weeks of the year on behalf of Nottingham City Council. We use this money to help provide various services to you.

It is very important that we receive as much rent as possible from all our tenants. We try to do this by maximising the amount of rent that we collect. Some of it is paid by housing benefit but the majority of our tenants pay part or full rent.

We will write to you every year in March with the amount of rent you need to pay for the coming year. It may alter throughout the year if you have a change in your circumstances or housing benefit is involved. If you take up our household insurance scheme, this will be shown on your rent card as a separate amount you will need to pay together with your rent amount.

Some £20 notes no longer legal tender from 30th June 2010

Do you have any £20 notes with a picture of Edward Elgar on the back? If so, you can only use them until 30th June. The Bank of England is withdrawing these older style £20 notes. For several months after the end of June most banks, building societies and Post Offices will accept the Elgar £20 notes for deposit to customer accounts and for other customer transactions. However, agreeing to exchange notes is at the discretion of the individual institution.

Only £20 notes with a picture of Adam Smith on the back will be acceptable legal tender from 1st July 2010.

The Bank of England will always exchange its old notes. Notes may be presented for payment either in person or sent by post (at the sender's risk) to: Dept NEX, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH. More information is on the Bank of England website.

Housing office and payment counter closure programme

In January 2010, we wrote to you about cash collection at our housing offices and asked for your views. We are now going to close some of our housing offices entirely and the cash counters at others. This is partly because increased use of other methods of payment has meant that it is becoming more and more expensive for us to continue running a cash collection service in these locations. The money we will save by not processing cash payments will be reinvested into services which are important to our tenants.

For details on which offices and cash counters are closing, please go to our 'Housing offices' page.

Keep your rent up to date and win a prize!

Every three months we will enter you automatically into our quarterly prize draw where you can win £100! An account will be chosen at random from a list of tenants who have kept their rent account clear for the last three months. If you pay by direct debit we will also enter you into our monthly prize draw for a separate £50 win. Your prize will be doubled if you have your winnings paid into a Nottingham Credit Union account. So there are lots of ways to win! Find out how you can win in our leaflet.

Pay your rent on-line here.

You can also pay at any of the Paypoint outlets in the city.

Why is it important for me to pay my rent on time?

If we don't collect enough rent money, it will be harder for us to give you the kind of service that we have promised and the kind of service you want. To make sure we collect as much rent as we can, we have a number of rent account managers who can help you with making arrangements to pay your rent. They can help with advice on:

• paying your rent
• rent arrears
• how to get help with rent and other debts
• organising a payment plan to help you pay off your arrears

You can also speak to one of our Financial Inclusion Officers if you are having problems with paying your rent.

Can I claim housing benefit?

Try using our benefits calculator. It will help you work out how much you may be able to claim (although this is only a guide - what you get may differ).

What happens if I don't pay?

We will send you a number of letters telling you that you owe rent and that you need to get your rent account up to date. This will involve a number of visits by a rent account manager who will help you sort your account out. If you do not pay after we have tried several times to help sort out your rent payments, we may have to issue you with a notice of seeking possession for non-payment of rent. You could end up losing your home.

Don't let this be you! This section will explain more about how you can pay your rent and where. The 'useful contacts' section will also tell you where you can get help if you need it.

For more information

We have a variety of leaflets on all aspects of paying your rent. Take a look at the 'useful links and documents' section.

Please contact:

Rents Team
Hounds Gate
Nottingham
NG1 7BA
Tel: 0115 915 4920
E-mail: rents@nottinghamcityhomes.org.uk

There are further contact details including those for housing offices on the 'contact us' page.