Income Collection Policy

This policy will establish the groups approach for collection of all income owed to the organisation let on the following agreements:

• Assured
• Secure
• Assured Shorthold
• Licence 

This policy is not applicable to the following:  

• Supported Housing  
• Grove Village
• Key Worker Accommodation 

All staff within the income team are expected to maintain the standards outlined within this policy.

Rent – refers to all rent and/or service charge due to YHG. 

Customers – In this policy refers to all customers of YHG including current and former. 

Consultation in relation to this policy has taken place with:  

• Key internal stakeholders including YHG’s Housing Management, Income collection, Money Advice and finance teams.  
• Customer Focus Group  
• Customer Services Committee
• Risk & compliance 

The key aims of the income collection team are to:  

• Maximise YHG Income
• Minimise arrears and bad debt
• Maximise customer income by ensuring our customers receive the benefits they are entitled to
• Minimise tenancy failure resulting from non-payment.

This policy will outline the overarching principles of our approach to income collection. 

Income Collection Principles

Your Housing Group believes that prevention and early intervention in Income Collection is crucial to maintain and sustain tenancies and will only seek eviction as a last resort.  

Eviction has high social and economic costs and as such Your Housing Group places great emphasis on alternative approaches with a focus on preventative and support mechanisms, rather than reactive strategies.  

Essential to this we will:  

• Ensure transparency with our customers and provide them with access to Your Home Hub to view accounts online 24 hours a day, rent statements will only be sent on request or 
  where required in law as part of the income recovery process
• Keep up to date with Welfare Reform legislation to enable Your Housing Group to support customers through the impact of these changes and provide a specialist in-house welfare benefit & debt advice service to our customers, free of charge
• Treat all customers in a respectful and courteous way, ensuring confidentiality when dealing with any rent or arrears issues, and provide a formal complaint process for customers who are dissatisfied
• Provide a wide and varied range of payment options including:

1. Direct Debit  
2. Debit or Credit Card  
3. Via the Home Hub online portal
4. By telephone (24-hour automated payment line or through an operative during office hours)
5. Online at www.allpay.net  
6. Via the allpay app (available on smart phones)  
7. Allpay card (cash paid at a Pay Point or Post Office)
8. Internet Banking / Bank Transfer  
9. Standing Order  
10. Cheque

• Where more than one debt is owed to YHG we will prioritise payments as follows:

1. Current Rent/Service Charge Arrears
2. Support & amenity charges
3. Current tenancy legal costs
4. Garage charges
5. Former Tenancy Arrears

• If an account falls into arrears, we will intervene early to bring this to our customers attention using a variety of methods including email, telephone, text, letter & visit
• We provide a free of charge welfare benefit & debt advice service to assist customers who are struggling with rent arrears/debts and/or benefit concerns, we will refer customers to this service if our discussions determine that is it needed, we can also signpost customers to other support services if we feel this would be beneficial or independent support is 
  requested
• We will sensitively explore our customers circumstances to ensure that we have enough information upon which to offer advice and make decisions, our decisions may deviate from the normal collection process if we consider a customer to be ‘vulnerable’ so that we can provide more intensive support either directly or via third party agencies. Examples of customer vulnerability may be any of the following, however this list is not exhaustive:

1. Drug/alcohol dependency
2. Living in an abusive household
3. Being a care leaver
4. Physical & Mental Health conditions
5. Literacy & numeracy issues
6. Age
7. Being the subject of financial abuse

• YHG also recognises that customers can become vulnerable based on their financial circumstances and where this is apparent our welfare benefit & debt advice team can provide support or refer customers to alternative sources of assistance.
• Where customers receive benefit from Housing Benefit or Universal Credit, before taking legal action YHG would ensure that any housing costs due to the customer are paid directly to YHG in line with Housing Benefit & Universal Credit regulations.  
• We will also seek third party deductions from Universal Credit & legacy benefits, where necessary, to safeguard a tenancy.
• When a tenancy is ending YHG will request that arrears are cleared prior to termination, failing this a payment plan will be sought. We will actively pursue any debts left by the organisation and will employ a debt collection agency to recover debts where necessary. 

Credits

Where there is credit held on a customer’s account a refund form should be completed which will be usually paid within 28 days, if there is any housing benefit or universal credit in payment, checks will be made to ensure that there is no debt owed to the local authority or Department for Work & Pensions. 

Should there be no outstanding overpayments; a refund will be approved only in the following circumstances:  

• Weekly payers – any credit over and above 1 week 
• Fortnightly payers – any credit over and above 2 weeks
• Four weekly payers – any credit over and above four weeks
• Calendar month payers – any credit over and above one calendar month. 

Where we identify a financial vulnerability YHG will work with customers to agree a mutually suitable arrangement. 

Arrears Recovery & Legal Action  

Customers are deemed to be in arrears when they have missed one weekly, fortnightly, four weekly or monthly rent payment. Customers will be encouraged to settle their arrears in full, where this is not possible, we will negotiate a repayment plan to gradually reduce the arrears owed to avoid the need for legal action.  

When calculating the agreement, we will consider the circumstances of the customer’s household including the income, expenditure, and other outstanding debts.  

We will offer the customer the opportunity to ensure that they are claiming all relevant welfare benefits to which they are entitled and provide them with welfare benefit and debt advice and/or signposting to free and independent services.  

All legal action will be taken in compliance with the pre-action protocol. (www.justice.gov.uk) The guidelines for service of legal documents are:  

• Notice of Seeking Possession (NOSP) when the balance is 4 weeks full rent arrears or had an arrears balance for more than 8 consecutive weeks
• Court application will be made when the level of debt is typically 8 weeks rent or more YHG may deviate from these guidelines based on individual customer circumstances. 

Court Applications 
 
YHG may apply for possession of a property based on the following grounds which relate directly to non-payment of rent/service charges: 

Ground 10 is a discretionary ground for possession where rent which is lawfully due from the customer has not been paid by the time the possession proceedings are started and was owed at the time the Notice Seeking Possession was served.  

Ground 11 is a discretionary ground for possession where the customer has repeatedly failed to pay rent on time. There need not be rent arrears at the time possession proceedings are started.  

Ground 8 is a mandatory ground for possession of an assured tenancy contained with the Housing Act 1988. An outright order must be granted where Your Housing Group can prove that two months’ or eight weeks’ arrears exist at the service of the notice and at the court hearing. The court has no discretion as to whether to grant the order.  

Former Tenants

YHG will continue to take action to recover monies owed by former tenants where it is economical to do so, including pursuing customers who don’t provide a forwarding address. This may include using reputable third-party collection agencies. Recovery action will continue until the debt is repaid. 

Where former debt is uneconomical to pursue or there is no prospect of recovery, the debt will be written off in accordance with the following:

• The debt relates to an agreement that ended over 6 years ago
• The customer has entered into a full and final settlement agreement for part re-payment of the debt
• Customer has not responded to contact & cannot be traced despite three attempts using tracing software
• The debt is under £25 and uneconomical to pursue
• The debt is included in a Debt Relief Order or Bankruptcy Order
• Customer is deceased, and we have no next of kin information or have received confirmation that there is no estate to clear the debt
• The customer has entered residential care on a permanent basis, has no power of attorney and is confirmed as, or suspected to, lack capacity 
• The customer has complex needs, is receiving wider support from YHG and the write off is supported by the housing management team
• We have proof that the customer has been given a prison sentence, of more than 2 years, and attempts to contact the customer have proven unsuccessful
• The customer has emigrated, has not provided a forwarding address and there have been three unsuccessful attempts to trace
• Customer can provide evidence that they are a victim of domestic abuse and whereby economic abuse has been a factor and the write off is supported by the housing management team
• Customer can provide evidence that they are a victim of a crime and whereby economic abuse has been a factor and the write off is supported by the housing management team
• There has been a service failure by YHG, and it is unreasonable to pursue the customer for the debt and the write off is supported by the housing management team. 

The Service Manager is responsible for ensuring all relevant staff have access to and understand the content of this policy and, have appropriate training to undertake their roles. The Service Manager 
will undertake a review of this policy in accordance with the businesses review schedule. 

In failing to adequately adopt the standards outlined within this policy we risk customer detriment through homelessness, reductions in our income streams, which will impact our ability to provide services to our current and future customers. 

Customer data relating to rent accounts is held in our housing, finance & document management systems in accordance with relevant Data Protection policies.    

This policy demonstrates adherence to the Equality Act 2010 to ensure equality of treatment for all customers without discrimination or prejudice. This policy has also been developed in line with YHG’s 
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and has been Equality Impact Assessed. YHG will be proactive in its approach to provide translations of all its documents, policies and procedures in various languages and other formats by utilising the data it holds about its customers and, will seek to keep this data updated at reasonable intervals. 

On request, YHG will provide translations of all its documents, policies and procedures in various languages and other formats by contacting YHG.      

This policy is publicised on our intranet for all employees to access as well as our website. 

Colleagues operating to this policy will be provided with training upon joining the business and additional refresher training as required, to remain updated with changes to any internal and external business practices, including benefit reforms. It is the responsibility of the Service Manager to ensure delivery of such training. 

Performance against this policy will be measured by  

• Income Collection Performance
• Arrears Performance – Current & Former Arrears
• Number of evictions
• Number of advice referrals  

This policy will be reviewed in February 2027 by the Service Manager.