Landlord has put rent up - can I protest

RabbitMad

ahxcjb wrote: »

That's the risk you take with becoming a landlord. Why should your tenant have to pay for your increase in mortgage fees?

So in any other business (e.g. fuel and food) an increased in the suppliers costs being passed on to the consumer is fine but in residential letting its the risk of being in business?

Why should the tenant pay, because the LL is running a business, if the LL accepted all the increases in costs without passing some of them on they wouldn't be in business very long.

From the OP's comments it sounds like the rent increase is still below what the LL could get in the local market and having not put it up for 4 year I think the LL values the tenant.

jjlandlord

RabbitMad wrote: »

So in any other business (e.g. fuel and food) an increased in the suppliers costs being passed on to the consumer is fine but in residential letting its the risk of being in business?

In any business you can pass on your increased costs if the market will bear it.
The key here is that you can't increase rent just because your costs increased, you can increase rent because the market (tenants) will bear it. If they don't, tough, profits go down.

ahxcjb is correct to say that a tenant does not care at all about the landlord's mortgage or any of the landlord's costs.
He's just willing to agree to a maximum level of rent. The landlord has a business only if this level allows him to make a profit.