Why do we need a rent increase each year?
Inflation is the measure of how much costs are going up over time. And unfortunately Knowes like all businesses are subject to cost increases due to inflation. For example our long term contracts for repairs, gas servicing, landscape maintenance and close cleaning all have a built in inflation factor each year, meaning that the costs of delivering these contracts goes up year on year.
As a responsible employer our staff receive a pay award each year, normally below RPI.
Government legislation requires us to spend additional money on our properties, and also impacts our management costs, whilst Universal Credit is requiring us to increase our staff resource and at the same time resulting in increasing levels of rent arrears. The costs of this are borne by rent income which is our main source of income.