No need for rent increase

South Ayrshire Council is one of only a few councils to increase their housing rents. Many of the other housing providers have frozen their rents in recognition of Covid19 and the very austere times we live in.

This council are putting up the rents yet again as Cllr. Phillip Saxton says“Unfortunately, not putting up rent was not an option,”The reason for this is that the existing tenants are being forced to pay for the building of new“Affordable Housing”and then to subsidise the rents of these Affordable Housing because the council have renamed them as“New Builds”and therefore can apparently charge higher rents on them. The Scottish Government pay the council two thirds of the building costs (£60,000) as “Affordable Housing”leaving the vouncil to pay just £30,000 for each new house. How then can the council charge extortionate Unaffordable rents for a house costing just £30,000? They then demand that the existing tenants increase their rents to pay for this excessive overcharging. The council are further charging tenants for what is alleged to be“bad debt “owed by tenants, page 6 of the tenants rent review document states that the council allows £2m for this in its calculations BUT according to the councils returns to the Scottish Housing Regulator“.The amount of money this landlord collected for current and past rent was equal to 99.2% of the total rent it was due in the year just £28, 000 left outstanding which was due to “empty housing”. The yearly increase in rent of £72 is easily outweighed by the overcharge so why did the councillors feel the need to vote for an increase?