Your rent is one of the most important financial commitments you have.
You should prioritise rent payments above all others. If you don’t pay your rent, your home is at risk.
Your rent is normally due one or two weeks in advance, to be paid on the first day of your rent cycle.
If you are unsure of your rent cycle, please contact us on 0800 624 456 or come in to the office.
It’s important you contact us straight away if you can’t pay your rent.
The sooner you talk to us, the more help we can offer.
We can help you come up with a plan on how you can meet your rent and sustain your tenancy.
Income-related rent
New ŌCHT tenancies are Ministry of Social Development (MSD) Income Related Rent tenancies.
ŌCHT uses an independent, qualified residential valuer to carry out a market rent review of its properties each year. ŌCHT supplies these rents to MSD and MSD approves the rent.
MSD calculates the rent the tenant pays to the ŌCHT. This is called Income Related Rent, and is usually around 25% of a tenant’s income.
MSD tops-up the rent paid to ŌCHT to the agreed market rent. It does this with the Income Related Rent Subsidy.
MSD reviews Income Related Rent annually or when the tenant has a change in income or circumstances. MSD can increase or drop the Income Related Rent paid by the tenant, or the subsidy paid to the Trust.
Decisions as to how much rent a tenant pays to ŌCHT are managed by MSD, and MSD informs ŌCHT how much rent to charge the tenant.
Assisted Rentals
Assisted Rentals are tenancies that transferred to ŌCHT from the Christchurch City Council on October 2, 2016.
ŌCHT subsidises these rentals. A tenant on an Assisted Rent is not expected to pay more than 85% of the annually assessed market rent and will not have more than a net 5% rent increase a year.
Getting help to manage
We have an Income Advisor and Well-being advisors who are here to help when you need it. Call 0800 624 456 and we’ll put you in touch with the right person.
We can also connect you with organisations that might be able to help. You can do some of your own research by visiting Family Services – a great directory of some of the free budgeting services available across Canterbury.
Sorted.org.nz also has some good tools to help work out a budget.