Landlord funding and finance

Housing Revenue Account

Local authorities must maintain a Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which is where they record expenditure and income on running their housing stock and closely related services or facilities, which are provided primarily for the benefit of their own tenants.

The main features of the HRA are:

• it is a landlord account, recording expenditure and income arising from the provision of housing accommodation by local housing authorities
• it is not a separate fund but a ring-fenced account of certain defined transactions, relating to local authority housing, within the General Fund
• the main items of expenditure included in the account are management and maintenance costs, major repairs, loan charges, and depreciation costs
• the main sources of income are from tenants in the form of rents and service charges and leaseholders in the form of service charges and ground rents
• the HRA should be based on accruals in accordance with proper accounting practices, rather than cash accounting