Dear Tenants,

First of all I would like to say thank you for your continued dialogue with us. Communication is key and we ask all of you to contact us with any concerns you may have.

Everyone at Orchards fully appreciates the stress and strain you are all under during this time, don’t forget are team comprises of tenants too.

The team are working hard in the background to ensure you get the continued service you require and deserve, but understandably we are going to need you help during this time too.

As of this now;

1. All property inspections are being postponed.

2. To ensure the legal obligations of our landlords are fulfilled any Gas Certificate which are due to expire within in the next two months are being instructed for renewal now. This is essential maintenance, but should you have any concerns at all please let us know. They will only proceed with you permission. Please ensure you contact Gas-Elec if you have any concerns about having the inspection carried out on 01473 827277.

3. For properties currently on the market, we will ask you to clarify your intentions, if you are still able to vacate at the date you had originally planned or do we need to make alternative arrangements with you.

4. Essential maintenance will be the priority for all members of staff here, ensuring boilers, water supplies, electricity etc remain uninterrupted.

Perhaps most importantly for some is the financial struggles that may occur at this time.
We have been struggling to find the best possible way to word this, but the reality is, it’s really rather black and white. Your rent remains legally due, and the last thing we want to see is any tenant end up getting themselves in debt and we stress that you get the financial help required in order to continue to pay your rent. The government has increased the amount of financial support on offer for housing claims and universal credit claims.

Just because your landlord has the term “landlord” they are still the same as you and I, still have the same financial concerns, still trying to find the best way to work during this time in order to pay their bills, a large proportion of our landlords are retired and have put their money into property where pension funds were failing and there was virtually zero return in interest from the banks. These landlords rely heavily on the rent as the income they live off and they too are also very worried.
If you cannot pay the full rent, pay what you can when you can, to help stop the debt from escalating and any outstanding amounts will need to be settled by arrangement once we are through this period if the full rent does not come in.

It also poses a lot of other potential issues from a management point of view such as not having any funds to pay contractors for maintenance which comes out of the rent and of course our own wages, as individuals we are also in a position where we will lose our own income and not be able to pay our own rent. The knock on effect is quite far reaching so we all await for more specifics to be clarified and hope that it provides some reassurance for all of us because at present all parties are naturally left anxious and wondering where we all go from here!

We are hoping however that the government’s announcement on Friday to support employers by covering 80% of the wages of furloughed workers will prevent or limit the number of workers being unpaid at this time.

Further advice and information can be found below.

Government advice - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-support-for-employees-benefit-claimants-and-businesses
Housing Benefit - https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/info/53/benefits/5/housing_benefit
Housing Benefit Central Beds - https://centralbedfordshire.egovhub.net/Org/Production/Apps/HBNewClaim/Launch.aspx
Universal Credit - https://www.universal-credit.service.gov.uk/postcode-checker

We continue to be available by phone and by email Monday to Saturday.

Our best advice during this period is that if your enquiry is urgent to please email team@orchards.co.uk to ensure an available member of the team receives it.

Please continue to call our normal landline number of 01525 40 22 66.

Kindest Regards
The Whole Team at Orchards