Helping you in your tenancy
Adaptations
Some people particularly older tenants and those with mobility difficulties wish to continue living in their home but need additional facilities such as ramped access or adapted showers or bathrooms to enable them to do so. DPHA can access funds to provide for these. Residents who feel they could benefit should contact the Council’s Occupational Therapy department who will arrange for a visit and my recommend alterations to suit you. All requests will be carried out by the association.
Paying Rent
Tenants have a variety of methods and a variety of locations to use to pay their rent. All tenants are now issued with a Swipe Card which can be used at shops, post offices and other outlets displaying the “Paypoint” logo. The Paypoint outlets will only accept cash payments.
In addition we encourage tenants to arrange a Direct Debit where the rent is taken from your bank account automatically on a specific day each month. Standing orders can also be accepted. Direct Debiting however allows the rent payment to be adjusted when for example there is a rent review rather than tenants having to contact their bank.
Payment can also be made using Debit or Credit card over the phone by calling 0870 243 6040 or securely through the internet by logging on to www.allpay.net .
Cheques but not cash can be sent by post. Payments should be made payable to Dalmuir Park Housing Association Ltd and sent to our office.
The Association will accept cash payments at the office although we would encourage tenants to use any of the other methods.
Setting Rents
We set rents at a level which allows us to continue to manage and maintain our housing stock. We also aim to ensure that rents are affordable. Our definition of affordable is that rents are set so that "Tenants working at least 16 hours per week should not normally require to be reliant on Housing Benefit to pay for housing costs". We also maintain our rents at a level that is comparable with other local social housing providers.
Arrears of rent
Some tenants can face problems with paying their rent. If you are having difficulties, we will work with you to stop an arrear building up and to reduce the debt over time according to your financial circumstances.
We aim to make personal contact with you as soon as we can after an arrear arises. This is so that we can try to find out the root cause of the problem and to jointly find a way of dealing with it before the debt gets out of hand.
Having discussed all the possible avenues we can jointly take to help your situation, we will be looking to make an arrangement with you to stop the arrears increasing and to bring down the debt. We can make an arrangement for regular payments towards the rent and arrears rather than large one-off payments. If you receive certain income benefits, a deduction can be made to contribute towards your arrear otherwise you will need to arrange to make payments yourself.
When an arrangement is made, it is important that you stick to it. We take your circumstances into account to ensure the arrangement is realistic and reasonable so that you should be able to keep to the payments schedule.
Most arrears are sorted out in this way. If we cannot work with you to resolve the arrears we will take legal action against. We can take action to recover the debt or to repossess your home or both. Further information is available in downloadable Arrears Information leaflet.
Ending your tenancy
If you intend to terminate your tenancy you have a legal obligation to advise the Association by giving 28 days notice. This allows us to advise you of the procedures involved including contacting the utilities (Gas, Electricity, Phones etc). A guide is available for you to download.