Rents Officer

Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: PO1 £41,133 - £43,680

Contract Type: Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 14/02/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): TBC

Reference: 1990

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:

We have a fantastic opportunity for a highly motivated individual with a passion for helping people and delivering high levels of customer service to join the Rents team.

You will provide an effective, proactive and customer focused income collection service, balancing prevention, support and recovery, using outstanding customer service.

What you'll do…

Provide an effective, proactive and customer focused income collection service, balancing prevention, support, and recovery. Work effectively under pressure to meet deadlines and targets. Put forward new ideas, constructively challenge the status quo and embrace change. Most importantly you will be passionate about people and go above and beyond to make a positive impact on customers.

>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<

Key Responsibilities:

Take ownership for all cases within a specific area and deliver a broad range of preventative measures, using a variety of methods to contact customers.
Ensure that advice, information, and guidance is easy to understand and provided as appropriate.

Actively assist customers with their rent related claims including Housing Benefit, Universal Credit, direct payment from benefits and Discretionary Housing payments (DHP) to maximum rental income.

Complete income and expenditure forms to implement sustainable and affordable payment plans.

Promote payment by direct debit and work with customers to create positive rent payment culture reducing the likelihood of missed payments and the need for legal action.

Complete referrals to the necessary debt and advice agencies, including the CAB.

Build and maintain relationships with other external agencies.

Use predictive analytics to analyse performance within your patch to meet key performance objectives.
Attend new tenant sign ups.

Prepare legal documentation, complete court applications via Possession Claims Online (PCOL) and represent the Local Authority in court.
Arrange and attend evictions.

Periodic attendance at community events, promoting and publicising the work of the Rents Team.

Qualifications and Requirements:

Numeracy and literacy qualification e.g. GCSE English and Maths or equivalent.

Relevant professional qualification

Terms and conditions:

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;

Satisfactory declaration of interest;

Satisfactory DBS check;

As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Luke Barrow, Rents Team Leader at Luke.Barrow@walthamforest.gov.uk

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.