Edinburgh Council recalls letters sent out by mistake telling thousands of tenants their rent will not increase

The Council has asked residents to ignore the letter.

Thousands of residents have been warned to ignore letters sent out by the Council by mistake informing them their rent will not change this year.

The letters, dated February 19, were received by many residents this morning.

They tell tenants that their rents will increase from March 2 but then mistakenly give the rent amount for this year, with no increase.

The letters affected residents in the south of the city.

One resident who received a letter phoned the Council to ask about it and was told about the mistake.

The resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: "At the end of the day the Council's made a muck-up. I contacted them and someone told me they had noticed last night that there had been an error.

"I don't have a problem with rents going up, but this is going to give people a false sense of security. My main concern is that people will budget incorrectly.

Edinburgh City Council has confirmed that the letters were a mistake.

It will not send out correction letters to households.

A new letter with the accurate rent changes will be posted out before March 6.

Gateside Tenants and Residents Association shared a message from a Council housing officer on Facebook:

"If you received a letter dated Wednesday 19th February 2020 from Place about a change to your rent and service charge from 2nd March 2020, please ignore this letter.

"This letter is the result of an error which has now been fixed. If you don’t already know how much rent you should be paying please contact your housing officer. We apologise for any inconvenience.

"For your information and others at ETF

"It seems a batch of unplanned letters was produced in error and the details are not accurate. This is not related to rent increase work and was a totally separate incident.

"We have not been able to cancel the letters and it seems they are out with tenants who may make enquiries. Our contact centre and locality teams have been advised to expect an increase in enquiries and we have put comms on our telephone lines etc."

A spokesperson for Edinburgh City Council said: "If anyone received a letter dated 19 February which talks about rent changes from 2 March we urge them to ignore it.

"We will not be sending out a letter to state that this letter was a mistake.

"However residents should expect another letter before 6 March which sets out the correct rent changes."