Rent

We maintain over 8,500 homes across Dorset and Somerset and have over 200 colleagues who are out and about on a daily basis, working in your homes and in your communities.

Your rent mainly covers the use and occupation of your home and some of the communal areas near your home. However, there are lots of services we offer which are also funded by your rent which may benefit you directly or indirectly.

Here’s a bit of a breakdown about some of the services your rent covers. If you are a shared owner, the services marked * are not covered by your rent.

• Delivering repairs*
  Our repairs service is available all year round. This covers day to day repairs which you report to us, for your home or communal area, and major planned repairs such as replacing bathrooms or kitchens. Our skilled teams will also work out of hours for emergencies to make sure your homes stay safe.
• Servicing gas, electrical and oil heating systems*
  There are lots of things in your home which will need regular checks to make sure they are safe and efficient. We use our qualified teams to check and maintain these items on a regular basis so they comply with national safety standards.
• Delivering fire safe homes*
  Keeping our customers safe is a key priority. We make sure that we keep homes and communal areas safe from potential fires by installing fire doors and smoke detectors and regularly checking for ways to improve safety.
• Managing asbestos*
  Some of our homes are of an age where they do have asbestos, and to make sure that these homes are safe, we have experts who manage this. They offer advice and support, and if it needs removing, are on hand to make sure this is done safely and legally.
• Running our contact centre
  Our contact centre deals with all your calls, emails, letters and social media messages and makes sure that these are actioned as quickly as we can. This team has an overview of all the requests coming into Magna and make sure that these are logged and dealt with.
• Managing and dealing with complaints
  Sometimes things don’t always go well and you want to report this so we can learn, and so you can understand what happened. We make sure that we deal with these effectively and learn from any mistakes we have made.
• Tenancy management and support
  When you rent a home with us, our teams are on hand to make sure you are supported and that you know where to go if you have any questions or issues.
• Providing money advice
  We offer support for people who need additional help with managing their money and are struggling with paying their bills or rent. Our expert money matters team are available for all our customers, to help provide advice on managing finances, budgets and claiming benefits.
• Managing anti-social behaviour
  We have a team of experts who deal with reports of nuisance and anti-social behaviour. They work with customers and other partners to keep our communities safe and a great place to live.
• Co-ordinating home aids and adaptations*
  From time to time, people may need some additional support to help them live comfortably in their homes. We support all our customers who need help, and will either provide this directly or signpost to agencies which can help.
• Processing permissions for changes
  We know that things change and sometimes you want to make changes to your home, have a pet or take in a lodger. We make sure that these requests are processed and managed fairly for all our customers and permissions dealt with in a timely way.
• Managing mutual exchanges*
  When you want to move, our housing team are able to support you with this to make the process as smooth as possible. Exchanges need someone to move into your property so we work with others to help with this process.
• Listening to your views and acting on them
  We want to make sure that we give customers every opportunity to help shape our services and how we operate. We have easy ways for people to get involved and a team who have expertise in this area.

To provide all these services, we also need to make sure that we have the right workforce, with the right training and the right equipment. This is not only those people who you see out and about but a number of people who are making sure our systems work well and that we are efficient. People who manage our finances, keep our IT working and make sure you can find out about us and get involved when you want to.

And because we are a not-for-profit organisation, all the money we receive is put back into the business to continue to create great homes.