SOCIAL housing provider Incommunities failed to set rents correctly which resulted in hundreds of tenants being overcharged, a regulator has found.

An external investigation is now underway and in a notice published today, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) said the Shipley-based company had breached the Rent Standard.

The regulator said it was a “serious matter resulting in tenants being overcharged and, as some of these rents may have been met through Housing Benefit and Universal Credit, there may also be implications for the public purse”.

The external investigation remains ongoing and the regulator said until it has concluded “it is not possible to quantify the full scale of errors, rents overcharged and impact on current and former tenants”.

Incommunities’ chief executive has apologised for the “failures” in its approach.

“Following a self-referral, RSH found that Incommunities had set rents incorrectly for hundreds of tenants,” the notice says.

“The housing association had wrongly classified some of its homes as supported housing. It also set some of its rents incorrectly on re-let and did not cap rents on some of its homes in line with requirements. As a result of those errors a significant number of tenants have been overcharged.

“Upon uncovering these issues, and in agreement with the regulator, Incommunities has committed to an external investigation into its rent-setting and is developing an action plan to ensure that errors are rectified and to minimise the risk of any repeat.

“This work will identify the full scale of the errors and the number of tenants who have been overcharged. The affected tenants will be reimbursed by the provider.”

Maxine Loftus, Director of Regulatory Operations, said: “Incommunities’ failure to set rents correctly has resulted in tenants being overcharged.

“We will work with Incommunities to make sure it puts things right for its current and previous tenants.”

The notice says once the issues were uncovered by Incommunities, it promptly reported the matter to the regulator and developed a wide-ranging action plan.

It adds: “Incommunities’ board and leadership has taken immediate steps to assure the regulator that is committed to addressing the failings and is engaging positively with us, with support from external advisers, to take the steps necessary to resolve these issues.”

Incommunities’ chief executive Rachael Dennis said: “Following my appointment as Chief Executive in 2021 I instigated a thorough review of our services to ensure we are providing a quality, customer-focused service.

“We self-referred to the regulator after uncovering historic issues with how we calculated some rents and service charges.

“The regulatory notice which has now been published is fair, and essentially presents what we already knew, incorporating a range of issues which we are working hard to resolve.

“We have put a robust two-year strategy in place to raise the performance of the business by setting out clear and measurable service improvement goals, we are working closely with external advisors to ensure that this situation is rectified as a matter of urgency and putting in place safeguards and improvements to make sure these issues do not happen again.

"Although there is clearly more work to do, I’m pleased that the regulator noted the immediate steps Incommunities Group’s board and leadership made to address these failings, and our willingness to take further steps to resolve issues.

“We would like to apologise to our customers for the failures in our approach, which have led to the regulator’s notice issued today.

“We are working with affected tenants and our local authority partners to ensure that any overcharges are returned as quickly as possible.”