A COUNCILLOR has apologised for an ‘unacceptable’ error that led to thousands of tenants being overcharged on their rent.

Darlington Borough Council overcharged 5,241 of its tenants a total of £220,000 in rent fees - averaging at around 81p per person per week over a ten-month period.

This represents an average overcharge of around £40 per tenant, though some are thought to have been charged up to £80 extra.

The majority of affected tenants were receiving housing benefit and universal credit which covered the erroneous increase, but 1,300 have been directly paying it.

The overcharge occurred after a 2.70 per cent rent increase agreed by councillors in February 2020 was wrongly inputted into the system as a £2.70 increase.

Letters are now being sent out to all those affected by the mistake, with tenants being fully reimbursed, or being offered the option of adding the credit to their rent account for this year.

The council is working with its Department of Work and Pensions officer over how the increase affected the benefits system.

Councillor Kevin Nicholson, cabinet member for health and housing, said it was important for the council to ‘hold its hands up’ and apologise for the mistake.

He said: “Unfortunately it has affected 5,241 tenants and that is a big error and I apologise for that because it isn’t acceptable.

“I know that our tenants deserve the best service and when things like this go wrong it doesn’t create confidence.

“I know the team that works on the frontline every day do their jobs because they are passionate about providing a good service for our tenants and when something like this goes wrong, it is a reflection on us all and it isn’t nice.”

Cllr Nicholson said the mistake hasn’t directly cost the council because the extra paid into the housing account had not been budgeted for and is being used to repay the affected tenants.

He said that the housing team has had a very stressful year dealing with the impact of Covid-19 but he did not want to use that as an excuse for the mistake.

He said: “The expectation from the public is that we pay to employ people who can see these issues, but that hasn’t happened and that isn’t acceptable.

“I and the team are very disappointed and we are trying to put that right.

“We have all had a very difficult year with Covid and being overcharged with rent isn’t something that anybody needs.

“We have made a mistake and we hold our hands up and as the responsible cabinet member I have to say sorry and make sure that it doesn’t happen in the future.”

He added: “It is sometimes the most simple of errors that cause the biggest impact.

“Just putting the wrong keystroke in a computer, you worry about the big things, but some simple error like this – putting £2.70 instead of 2.70 per cent - has actually had a really big impact on our tenants.”

The council has notified the Regulator of Social Housing and confirmed that no affected tenants have been evicted over rent payments.