Social housing sector rents

​Request 717968323

Who decides what the social housing sector rents are set at in comparison to the private sector ? Is it not Deputy Sam Mezec who is the Housing Minister responsibility and power to adjust these things on his own and is he not responsible for ensuring affordable access to housing in this his second term as housing Minister ?

Response

The policy to set social housing rents at no more than 80% of market value was approved by the States Assembly in the Government Plan 2022-2026. The policy has been in effect since 1st January 2022. Information on the social housing rents policy can be found on page 141 of the Government Plan via the link below:

Government Plan 2022 to 2025

The Minister for Housing has oversight of the social housing rents policy, and for ensuring that social housing providers – government-owned Andium Homes and the independent Housing Trusts – satisfy the policy and adopt transparent practices in setting rents.

There is no centralised formula for the calculation of rents, and social housing providers are responsible for ensuring that their rents comply with the policy.

Social housing providers typically use market rental data from Jersey-based estate agents to help determine the rental values for their properties, which also vary across their respective property portfolios according to several factors, for example, size, type, and location of a given property.

Andium Homes is subject to the annual rent adjustment policy, details of which have been published on www.gov.je and can be found in the link below (MD-H-2018-0021), which places a 4% cap on rent increases and can be further adjusted to ensure a rent increase for an individual property is not more than the 80% rent ceiling. For Andium tenancies secured under the previous 90% policy (specifically rents charged between 80-90% of the market value), rent levels are frozen until they fall back to 80% of the market rate.

Social housing rents: annual rent adjustment policy​

The Housing Trusts are responsible for their own internal procedures to ensure that their rents remain within the 80% rent ceiling.​​