Rent Increase

duchy13

Hi,

I am currently paying rent where I am of £1460.00 since I moved in last year April.
My landlord wants to increase the rent to £1550.00, this is a £90.00 increase after only one year.
Am I correct in believing that this is quite a high jump?
Two of the bedrooms where without adequate heating during the winter, although this will be repaired next month, we have had to use electrical heaters during the winter, this means that our utitility bills will be higher.

I would like to reply the landlord soon, but would like some good points of argument as to why the rent should not be increased or by how much I believe is a reasonable increase.

Is it normal practice for rent to go up annually?

Many Thanks
Helen

Loadsabob

Hello Helen,

my own experience is that our own perceptions (as tennants) of reasonable increases doesn't count anymore. It's all based on rents of comparable properties in the area.

My brother was told his rent would go up from £400 per month to £500 per month, with just the minimum notice required. He and his wife were expecting a baby at the time, and alarmed at this. The best he could do was negotiate with the landlord who agreed to a £10 per month increase month on month until the whole £100 had been added on. This helped a great deal, but the landlord wasn't obliged to accept this, just did so out of understanding for my brother's situation. The only other thing he could have done was take it to an appeal where the panel assess the proposed new rent (not the percentage increase, that apparently is irrelevant) in line with other similar properties in the area...as he had been fortunate with his rent up until this point, he knew that it wasn't over the current market rental value, so couldn't do a thing.

So there's actually no maximum by which rents can go up, as far as I know from my research. There used to be...I think the Tories saw that off.

As for annual or not... I don't really know. I don't think all landlords or agencies put their rent up annually, but I have a feeling that they can't do it MORE than annually. So with all the hikes in house prices (which seem, ludicrously, to feed down to rental prices), perhaps more landlords are likely to up the rent every year, to reflect what they perceive to be the increased value of their property.

I am lucky to have had only two increases, not large ones, in four years...

I don't know whether any of this will help, and I speak only from personal experience, online research and CAB advice given to my brother. There may be people on here who have more clout in their knowledge!

Anna

dougk_2

Although it sounds a lot in actual money the increase is only 6% which is reasonable.

The landlord has to cover the cost of the work you need done.

At present it appears there is quite high demand for rental properties (maybe because people are scared of possible falling prices and selling up???) so expect most peoples rent will increase over the coming year.

Xbigman

If you are on a lease, then when the lease ends a landlord can put the rent up as much as he/she likes. The other option is to cancel your lease and get some one in at the higher rate. The days of landlords trying to keep long term good payers in their properties is virtually over.
Regards



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