About our service charges
This page details which of our residents are charged and what the charges are for.
We regularly consult with our residents to help shape and improve our services. We will regularly update this section of our website to share our residents views to surveys and the actions we have taken in response.
We have a dedicated staff group who focus on residents‘ issues and suggestions, listen to them and act on them whenever possible.
Any resident can send us their ideas or suggestion to help us improve the services we provide. If you would like to be more involved you can join our Melin Voices group who have a dedicated budget which they use to support residents, making a difference to our communities.
If you would like to be more involved, you can join one of our Voices focus groups:
The Community Group meet monthly with the Communities Team to plan and fund neighbourhood events and award grant funding
The Customer Service Group scrutinise the services that Melin provide and give recommendations on service improvement, seeking the views of residents and staff. They meet when required to get reports completed.
Melin has adopted the Joseph Rowntree Living Rents Model, which states that someone’s rent should never be more than 28% of average net income. Over 93% of our residents agreed that this was the right approach to take.
As part of this consultation, we also said that we would look at how we can keep service charges as low as possible. The Rowntree Living Rents Model says that service charges should be no more than 5% of average net income. Over 88% of our residents agreed that this was the right approach to take.
Some of our properties and schemes benefit from additional services and facilities. These include specialist equipment, adaptations, communal areas and scheme management services. This can make it difficult for Melin to keep service charges below 5% of average net income for residents in these properties. Our residents were split 50/50, with half agreeing with this approach and half disagreeing.
Lastly, we asked you how many residents in a particular scheme should agree to a change in, or the introduction of, a service charge. A majority of respondents said that at least 80% of residents should need to agree.
This consultation has led to a number of positive changes. These include:
We surveyed our residents about our Income Recovery Policy, as a result of the feedback we have:
This page details which of our residents are charged and what the charges are for.
Find out how you can influence the services we provided in our feedback groups.