To help you keep track of your money, we send you a rent statement every three months if your account is in arrears, otherwise they are sent every six months. Please take a few minutes to look at it; you can then see if you are paying us the right amount, check that any housing benefit or direct payment from Universal Credit is being paid and find out if you are in arrears or if we owe you any money.

Your statement includes general information such as your reference number, the period the statement covers and your housing officer. It also contains a table with five columns that shows dates, description, debit, credit and balance. More information on these and an example is shown below:

This is always a Monday. Any rent due and any payments made during the week following this date will appear in the columns across the page in line with this date.

The newest date is at the top and the oldest date is at the bottom of the table.

This tells you what the charge (your rent) is and the period it covers plus any payments made to the account and what the payment is, for example Direct Debit or card.

This is the amount of any charges to your account.

This shows the amount of the payments you, Housing Benefit or the DWP have made to the rent account.

Please note that Universal Credit housing costs are only shown where we have a direct payment to landlord in place.

This shows the balance on the account at that date. If it is a credit balance you are up to date with your rent. If it says debit you are in arrears and this shows how much you still owe us.

The statement will display transactions within the specified date period. If that date is in the past please note that weekly rent payments have been charged to the account since then, or you may have made a payment that is not showing. Please bear this in mind if you think you might be entitled to a refund.