Financial wellbeing
The cost-of-living is affecting how many of us manage our money, and we’re here to help if you’re struggling to pay your rent.
Our Financial Wellbeing service is there to offer you advice and support and we carry out a benefits check for every referral so we can spot any issues early.
We help people access benefits they were entitled to, including backdated payments. The service has reduced the number of people who have fallen behind on their payments, known as rent arrears, and helped people keep their homes.
Customers often tell us this support has made a real difference to their lives.
This year:
Did you know?
This year, fewer customers fell behind on rent repayments, with rent arrears dropping from 1.51% to 1.49%, our lowest level ever and a better result than our target of 2.5%.
supported with their financial wellbeing
of benefit applications and appeals won
people supported via our Hardship Fund
provided in energy / fuel vouchers
provided in supermarket vouchers
families helped access their local foodbank
disability benefit advice cases supported
Universal Credit cases supported
A family discovered they had been missing out on the child disability element of Universal Credit for their son since 2022.
Heather from our lettings team encouraged them to contact the Department for Work and Pensions, and the customer was awarded £495 per month going forward, plus an incredible £17,000 backdated payment.
The customer shared: “We had no idea we were missing out. Thanks to Heather and the team, it’s made a substantial change in our lives. It’s a dream come true.”
They plan to use the funds for essentials like flooring and new beds for their children.
You can find out more about our money advice tool here.
Money advice tool unlocks life-changing support for family
Getting into work
“My mental health
has improved
massively since
being in work.”
customers
with job
searching
We help customers to build confidence, improve skills and find work.
This year we helped:
Service charges
Service charges cover things like communal repairs, maintenance, improvements, insurance and administration costs. `They’re needed to keep your home and community in good shape.
This year, service charges increased in line with inflation so that we can keep up with the rising costs for things like repairs materials.
We asked for your feedback through 207 Section 20 consultations. These give you a chance to share your views before we carry out major work or sign new contracts.
A few examples of the topics we asked for your thoughts on were the installation of new door entry systems, decoration works, lift modernisation, cleaning contracts, building insurance and communal electricity contracts.
We asked customers for feedback about installing new door entry systems in buildings that did not already have them. Some customers raised concerns about these plans, in part because of the impact this might have on their service charges.
We’ve reviewed the feedback and recognised that we need to involve customers earlier in the process. Instead of making decisions for them, we will now present different options and work with customers to choose the best solution together.
Listening to you
Did you know?
Our teams aim to build strong working relationships with Managing Agents and Management Companies, while continuing to hold these organisations to account on your behalf. Whether it’s not responding to our requests for information or addressing service issues, such as poor grounds maintenance, we will raise formal complaints including taking them to the Property Ombudsman where needed.
Call us on 0333 400 8222 or email contactcentre@aster.co.uk for more information.
Find out more...