Rent increases

Ness_2

My boyfriend and I received a letter from our landlord today informing us that as of 1st April, our rent will be increasing by £75 from £960 to £1035. There was no warning or discussion that this would happen despite us living in a barn attached to their house and seeing them most days. The reasons they have given for this are increases in council tax and domestic bills (our rent includes these as well as some other extras such as Sky Plus).
Can they do this at short notice?

franklee

Are you still in the fixed term or are you on a periodic tenancy?

If fixed term what does the agreement say about rent increases?

If periodic then they can raise the rent no more than once a year by issuing a section 13 notice which requires at least one months notice.

Worth negotiating based on your current local rental market, what other competition is out there, thread with more on setting the rent due to the local renting market rather than the landlords costs this here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=386703

Gorgeous_George

Sounds reasonable to me. I thought it was two months' notice but regardless of that, the answer has to be to negotiate.

If at the end of the negotiations, you are still not happy, move out.



GG

franklee

Gorgeous_George wrote:

I thought it was two months' notice but regardless of that, the answer has to be to negotiate.

It's a month which I agree sounds bizarre when notice to leave is two months. Means you could jack the rent up a huge amount to encourage the tenant to leave as a quicker way of giving notice :rolleyes:

PS, Ness, On the original question, If you're in the fixed term and the AST doesn't say anything about rent increases then the rent can't be increased during the fixed term.

Ness_2

Thanks for the advice.

We don't quite know what tenancy agreement we have as there's no mention on the tenancy agreement. There's a gap where a fixed term maybe should have been filled in... maybe we have a statutory periodic tenancy?

We've been renting for 9 months; does this mean that they must wait another 3 months before raising the rent?

Also, our tenacy agreement is supposedly an "Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement"... I thought they had to be one or the other?

Alleycat

If your tenancy is an Assured Shorthold, it is usually for a period of either 6 or 12 months. What was agreed when you moved in? It would not be a periodic tenancy as the original tenancy has not elapsed and a tenancy agreement was signed. Its strange though that they have not filled in the bid where the fixed term should be. Best to ask them if you are unsure, just to get clarification, then post here for further advice.

Regarding a rent increase, they can do this if the fixed term is due to end and would have to give a minimum of one months notice. If you disagree with the amount being proposed, you can contact the fair rents officer at your local council who can come out and assess the property, but your landlords don't have to follow the recommendation they give if they don't want to.

I think the first thing you need to do, really is to clarify what term your tenancy is on.

franklee

Ness, you do need to find out what you're on.

If you've been renting for nine months and been given notice of a rent increase for next month, i.e. after 10 months, then I would guess that you had an initial six months term and are now on a periodic tenancy. But that's just a guess.

All of this is still an Assured Shorthold Tenancy. The way it normally works is that you begin with a fixed term of say 6 or 12 months. After that you either renew by signing up for another fixed term or if nothing is done you automatically go on to a periodic tenancy.

How did the landlord notify you of the increase, you say it was written but did it mention section 13 anywhere? There's an example here to give you some idea what that may look like:

http://www.letlink.co.uk/GeneralInfo/Section_13_2003/new_section_13_notices_Form_4b.htm

thesaint

If the term is not put on your tenancy agreement, or anywhere else on the paperwork supplied, I would use it to mean whatever suits you.
If you take it to mean you have a certain term of 12 months, the landlord is unlikely to fight it, as he doesn't have any proof otherwise.
The problem will be that he can serve you an eviction notice to coincide with the end of the fixed term or increase the rent by a bigger amount.

Gorgeous_George

Maybe, the LL is increasing the charges for domestic bill and council tax ONLY. Would they (the LLs) be able argue that the rent is remaning static.

It was these increased bills that lead me to conclude the rise of 7.8% was reasonable.



GG

Ness_2

A picture is worth a thousand words:


As you can see, there wasn't a fixed term specified, although maybe there should have been? Could it be taken that the term ended at the end of 2006, so now we are statutory periodic tenants?

The contract itself doesn't mention rent increases inside, at all.

franklee wrote:

How did the landlord notify you of the increase, you say it was written but did it mention section 13 anywhere? There's an example here to give you some idea what that may look like:

http://www.letlink.co.uk/GeneralInfo...es_Form_4b.htm

No, there was nothing 'legal' in the letter at all - it was just a polite little note. Does this mean that it isn't good enough to constitute official notice?

franklee

Ness wrote:

As you can see, there wasn't a fixed term specified, although maybe there should have been? Could it be taken that the term ended at the end of 2006, so now we are statutory periodic tenants?

The contract itself doesn't mention rent increases inside, at all.

No, there was nothing 'legal' in the letter at all - it was just a polite little note. Does this mean that it isn't good enough to constitute official notice?

That's bad, the dates should have been filled in. I don't know where that leaves you but if you are now on a periodic tenancy and you didn't agree with the rent increase then you need to be given proper notice. So I think a note isn't good enough. If you had agreed the increase then a note would be OK.