How rent is calculated

Your rent will be either the ‘market rent’ or the ‘rebated rent’, whichever is less and will be 25 per cent of your total household income, not including your Centrelink family payments. 

You’ll pay 12 per cent of your family payments till 25 May 2009, rising to 15 per cent after three years.

When we work out your rent, we include most kinds of income, such as:

• wages
• salaries
• pensions
• benefits
• allowances
• superannuation
• lump sum payments
• interest from savings
• income from investments

Some types of income are not included, such as  Pharmaceutical and Telephone Allowance.

We’ll also include most Centrelink payments that you’re able to get - whether you claim that payment or not. So if you’re able to receive a Newstart Allowance but you don’t claim it, we’ll still include this amount when we work out your rent.

If your income goes up or down, your rent payments could change.

The Family Tax Benefit Lump Sum Supplement and your rent

Every fortnight, you might get Family Tax Benefit Part A and Family Tax Benefit Part B. But you’ll get your Family Tax Benefit Lump Sum Supplements after the financial year ends on 30 June.

We’ll average out your Lump Sum Supplements over one year when we work out your rent.

Some people get less than the maximum Lump Sum Supplement. If Centrelink tells you that your lump sum payment is less than the maximum, you can apply to reduce the amount of lump sum that we use in our calculations.

You’ll need to complete an Application for rebated rent form to let us know about this. You’ll also need to provide documents showing your lower Lump Sum Supplement payment to your local housing office.

Other charges

Sometimes, you might need to pay other charges as well as your rent. These could include parking bay charges, service charges to cover the cost of heating, water and other utilities and sleep-out or bungalow charges.

You can find out more about these charges from your Housing Officer.

Changes in your rent

Your rent will be reviewed each year and the amount you pay could change when it’s reviewed. 

Your rent could also change if your income goes up or down. It’s very important to tell your local housing office if your income goes up or down, or if someone moves into or out of your house.