Question for LL's - Long contracts??

debrag

fortunatly we have a lovely ll, only seen him a few times, does repaires when needed and isnt increasing our rent

driver24ian

ilovecheese wrote: »

Hi Marliepander

Thanks for your post!

It just drives me mad! Why would she risk new tenants (who could refuse to pay rent, start up a cannibis factory) over £40.00 a month??? This adds up to £480.00 a year! 1 months void would cost £770.00 - it makes no sense to me!

Get rid of on-time paying tenants who look after the property, for less than £500.00 a year - madness.

Well it will be her loss if we move!

I would love it if you were my tenants. If you need a house in the Nottm area feel free to get in touch.

ilovecheese

Hi Driver24ian

Thanks for the offer! unfortunately I live it the very expensive South East (near Gatwick airport).

After discussions with both neighbours (one of which has also had a propsosed increase) we have decided to invite the LL round to have a look at the properties (and gardens) so she can see how we treat the place, and hopefully negotiate the rent to stay the same. LL is out of the country at the moment so will come back and update the thread once I have some news.

In the past three months all 3 neighbours have replaced fence posts and fence pannels (at cost to the LL) which were damaged by the weather, one of our neighbours power washed all the guttering to get rid of the leaves and all the muck, this has saved our LL money!!! My hubby cuts the grass verge outside our properties and maintains the hedge outside our front garden, again not our responsibility, but we like to live in a nice house in a nice area!

But from now on we will not be inclined to these "extras" as we feel our LL is really taking the p***

Will have to work on my negoation skills!!

tbs624

ilovecheese wrote: »

Our LL owns 3 terraced properties which are all rented out. We have lived at the property for 12 months and are desperate to stay long-term, however, our LL has just e-mailed increasing the rent by £40.00 per month to £810.00

It may come as a surprise to your LL that unless you choose to agree to her proposed increase she will need to formally serve a S13 Notice.

You are right to seek to negotiate - to keep a reliable T in situ it is worth forgoing annual rent increases. All but the greediest LLs recognise that.

LLs such as yours often take the view that as you have invested your own time and money in her property you are unlikely to want to move on elsewhere so you may tolerate a rent increase.

N79

tbs624 wrote: »

You are right to seek to negotiate - to keep a reliable T in situ it is worth forgoing annual rent increases. All but the greediest LLs recognise that.

Up to a point, I agree but there really does come a point in a long term tenancy when rents must be adjusted to current market rates as the difference has gone beyond a few percentage points. I have regulated tenancies on around 40 - 50% of market rents due to years with no (or tiny) rent rises and I would not run an AST the same way. There comes a point where a short void is worth it without being greedy.

Also, in my experience, several smaller rises cause less heartache than on large rise say every 4 years as people don't factor in the 3 years of 0% rises to see that the average rise is reasonable. Most people just don't work that logically with numbers.....

ilovecheese

Hi N79

I take your point, but our LL is asking to increase our rent to £810.00 per month, I found 18 two bed properties on Rightmove with an average rent of £753.00 per month, in addition to this we pay £65.00 per month to have the cesspool emptied, in a normal house our waste water would cost £5.00 per month so in effect if the rent goes up to £810.00 in real terms it is costing us £870.00 - well over the local average.

Our rent is already above the average!!!

driver24ian

I knew it was expensive down there but £810 pm is high, must be a nice area, good luck with the negotiations.

Yorkie1

OP you asked about the possibility of long-term rental contracts. I have a recollection that anything longer than 3 years needs to be signed as a deed - which is unusual and probably has higher set-up / legal costs.

Hopefully others will confirm or deny whether my recollection is correct.

ilovecheese

Hi Driver24ian

It is expensive!! Our propery has 1 double bedroom upstairs and a "bedroom" downstairs, which has a 5ft 9 single bed in it (we had order the bed in this size because a standard single bed would not fit). There is no room for any other furniture, there is just a small bed.

So it really is a one bedroom property. It is in a small hamlet, but very close to a busy road, there are no transport links or amenities, if you want a pint of milk it is a car journey, not eveyones cup of tea, but we really like it.

I sat in the back garden last night watching a fox try and catch a rabbit. .

We would love to spend the next 5-10 years living here, but cannot do that on the amount of rent we are being charged.

My husband has only just finished planting out the spring, summer, autum and winter bulbs, it such a shame we might not be there to watch them flower

tbs624

Yorkie1 wrote: »

OP you asked about the possibility of long-term rental contracts. I have a recollection that anything longer than 3 years needs to be signed as a deed - which is unusual and probably has higher set-up / legal costs.

Hopefully others will confirm or deny whether my recollection is correct.

Yorkie1 is right that longer ASTs need to executed as a deed. (as should any AST guarantor agreement)

To do so is not hugely complicated or costly.

See the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 ( which abolished the need for sealing the document)

S1 Deeds and their Execution.........

(2)An instrument shall not be a deed unless—

(a)it makes it clear on its face that it is intended to be a deed by the person making it or, as the case may be, by the parties to it (whether by describing itself as a deed or expressing itself to be executed or signed as a deed or otherwise); and
(b)it is validly executed as a deed by that person or, as the case may be, one or more of those parties.

(3)An instrument is validly executed as a deed by an individual if, and only if—

(a)it is signed—

(i)by him in the presence of a witness who attests the signature; or
(ii)at his direction and in his presence and the presence of two witnesses who each attest the signature; and

(b)it is delivered as a deed by him or a person authorised to do so on his behalf.