Saffron Housing Trust Limited
Service Charges & Rent Manager, . Saffron Housing Trust Limited
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About Saffron Housing Trust Limited
Norwich NR15 2XP, UK
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Inclusive Features
Disability Confident scheme
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Job Description
The Vacancy
Fulltime: 37hrs per week
Proposed Interview Date: TBC
We have an exciting opportunity for a Service Charges & Rent Manager to be operationally responsible for the effective management, administration, and communication of service charges and rent application for 7000+ homes, homeowners, freeholders on estate and garages.
Key Responsibilities Include
- Develop, implement, and manage the annual service charge budgets for all properties within the Housing Association's portfolio, ensuring accuracy and transparency.
- Ensure the annual rent and charges are issued in line with regulatory requirements, and best practice. Ensuring all tenants that have a service charge or personal charge receive clear and concise breakdowns of the charges, with transparent explanations for any changes in costs.
- Ensure that service charge, estate-based charges and utility billing arrangements comply with the relevant laws, regulations, and guidelines, including the Leasehold Reform Act and other housing legislation.
- Provide clear and transparent communication to residents regarding service charge billing, including responding to queries and explaining charges in an understandable manner.
- Work closely with contractors, suppliers, and internal teams to support the teams that manage the contracts to ensure that services provided to residents (e.g., cleaning, maintenance, grounds maintenance) are delivered as per the agreed terms and conditions.
- Lead on the implementation of new systems, tools, or technologies to improve service charge management and resident satisfaction.
- Deliver a high standard of customer service ensuring customer outcomes are effectively delivered.
For a full list of responsibilities please see the attached Role Profile
Our Ideal Candidate Will Have
Educations and Qualifications:
- Degree level or equivalent relevant professional qualification or qualified by experience (E).
- Evidence of continued professional development (E)
- Have or are working towards a Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Level 3 or above, or similar (D).
Experience
- Demonstrable and extensive working in service charge and rents management or a similar role within housing associations, property management, or public sector housing.
- In depth experience in managing complex variable service charges, estate charges, sinking funds, and diverse rent regimes (Social, Affordable, Intermediate).
- Understanding of leasehold management, Section 20 consultation processes and managing external third-party managing agents.
- Understanding of welfare benefits.
- Extensive experience in operational management and leading a customer facing team.
- A track record of customer excellence and performance against KPI's
- Experience of change management and being a subject matter expert for changes in software and systems.
- Experience of working within a customer-focused environment and handling challenging customer interactions.
- Knowledge of housing management software and systems used to manage service charge billing and reporting.
- Experience of modifying and maintaining policy and procedures.
- Substantive experience of working with and presenting complex financial and compliance reports to governance groups including Tenant Service Committees and Boards.
- Experience of identifying, interpreting, and implementing changes in response to new legislation or regulations.
- Experience at forming and delivering strategic roadmap plans including training, quality assurance, and annual plans.
- Experience in leading customer facing teams and a history of customer excellence & performance against KPI's.
- Experience of interpreting law and housing legislation as it related to rents, service charge, leasehold management and managing agents to ensure compliance and effective service delivery.
- Extensive stakeholder management of both internal and external stakeholders.
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Skills, Knowledge And Abilities
- Strong knowledge of government policy, legislation, regulations, in relation to service charges, rents and best practice
- Strong knowledge of leases, tenancies, legislation, and case law in relation to service charges, sinking funds and rents.
- Knowledge of developing IT systems for managing service charges & rents.
- Strong knowledge of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 & Housing Acts.
- Knowledge of the Regulator of Social Housing's Consumer Standards (2024) and pending leasehold, shared ownership, and freehold charges reforms.
- Coaching and leadership skills to enable a team to develop to achieve its full potential.
- Exceptional ability to translate complex financial concepts into "plain English" for diverse stakeholders, colleagues, and residents.
- Exceptional customer service skills with a commitment to resolving complex enquiries efficiently and effectively.
- Strong customer service skills, with a focus on resolving queries and complaints in a timely and professional manner.
- Strong skills in financial modelling, budgeting, and forecasting
- Proficiency in using data and insights to drive personalisation transparency, and service improvements.
Personal Attributes
- Coaching and leadership skills to enable a team to develop to achieve its full potential.
- Adopts a collaborative approach and excels in building and maintaining strong stakeholder relationships internally and externally.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret financial data and identify trends or issues.
- Skilled in gathering and leveraging customer feedback to drive continuous improvements.
- Exceptional organisational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities effectively.
- High level of attention to detail and accuracy in financial and service charge calculations.
- Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills, with the ability to build relationships with internal teams, contractors, and residents.
- Proficient in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, and housing management software systems.
- A proactive approach to continuous improvement and process development.
- This role may require occasional travel to different properties and meetings across the Housing Association's portfolio.
- A flexible approach to work may be required during peak times (e.g., annual rent and charge notifications, year-end service charge reconciliation).
Please note this role is subject to a Basic Disclosure and Barring Service check
The Company
We are a housing association based in Norfolk providing quality homes and services to people across the county and in Suffolk.
We manage over 6,000 homes including affordable homes for those in housing need who cannot afford to rent or buy in the open market.
We offer specialist homes for older and vulnerable adults and are committed to providing new homes to help solve the housing crisis.
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At Saffron
We have a huge commitment to our employees. We want the team at Saffron to be happy, empowered, motivated and feel proud to be part of the Saffron community. We know by having great people we can do a great job for our tenants. We trust our colleagues to do the right thing and we are looking for people whose values are aligned with ours (PACE - Professional, Accountable, Collaborative and Evolving).
You will have the freedom to learn and grow. We are passionate about investing in our people, providing them with the skills they need now, and for their future aspirations. We do this by offering a blend of learning opportunities, including our innovative e-learning platform where learning is self-directed allowing people to learn what they want, when they want to.
We work with and support our people to work in an agile way to ensure that have the right work/life balance. They have the choice to work in the office, work from home, coffee shop, park or a combination of all. We have recently refurbished our offices to encourage collaborative, agile working.
As an inclusive employer, we are committed to the equal treatment of all current and prospective employees and have a zero tolerance policy relating to discrimination on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.
We aspire to have a diverse and inclusive workplace and strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join the Saffron Community.
Our Strategy
Inspiring Organisation
Outstanding colleague engagement
Inspiring Organisation sets out the path to outstanding colleague engagement which we believe necessary to achieve 90% tenant satisfaction, and the actions we will take over the next year.
Inspiring Communities
90% customer satisfaction
Inspiring Community sets out the path to increasing tenant satisfaction from 74% to 90%, and the actions we will take over the next year.
Inspiring Innovation
Creating £3m of capacity to invest
Inspiring Innovation sets out the path to freeing up a further £3m per year that we believe necessary to invest in providing the best possible home, service and workplace, and the actions we will take over the next year.
Governance
We will operate in a culture where strong governance, compliance and risk assessment is business as usual.
Homes
We will actively manage our existing homes, and deliver new affordable housing to provide quality homes for current and future customers.
Our Benefits
Learning And Development
- Covers the membership fee of one professional body relevant to your job role, and excellent opportunities for training & courses
Time Off
- Generous holiday entitlement, Holiday Trading, Volunteer and study days, and Enhanced Family Leave
Prioritising Mental Health
- Access to our Employee Assistance Program, trained Mental Health First Aiders and wellbeing check-ins
Aviva Pension Scheme
- Choose your contribution and Saffron match up to 10%, and we offer Life Assurance cover
Health Schemes
- Bupa Private Medical Insurance, Medicash Cashback Plan [eligible after probation completion]
Salary Sacrifice Schemes
- Cycle to work, and Tusker Car Scheme
Shopping discounts
- Access to our Employee Assistance Programme
staff recognition awards
Support For Your Qualifications
Pension
Access to our mental health first aiders
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