Negotiating a rent reduction before renewing the contract (or moving out)

Crashy_Time

Go to one of the cheaper similar sized flats and start putting the £300 you save each month into savings/investments as a cushion for the next crisis (we must only be days away from full NL now?) Of course give the present landlord the option of reducing by £300 before you go, but you need to call their bluff, no point making noises about reductions if you are not prepared to follow through.

[Deleted User]

This is going to last between 3-6 months.  Its going to take a while for things to pick up for you.  Have neither have you looked for other jobs to tide you over?  Particularly the one who doesn't qualify for support? I have done every job going temporarily whilst looking for a permanent job pre child care problems. 

Crashy_Time

deannatrois said:

This is going to last between 3-6 months.  Its going to take a while for things to pick up for you.  Have neither have you looked for other jobs to tide you over?  Particularly the one who doesn't qualify for support? I have done every job going temporarily whilst looking for a permanent job pre child care problems. 

People were saying that last March, posters on here were saying this whole thing was a "blip" that would have no noticeable effect on the economy, truly laughable now some of those ideas?

arte

deannatrois said:

This is going to last between 3-6 months.  Its going to take a while for things to pick up for you.  Have neither have you looked for other jobs to tide you over?  Particularly the one who doesn't qualify for support? I have done every job going temporarily whilst looking for a permanent job pre child care problems. 

It will take a while for sure for things to pick up for many of us, even the support from the government won't last for much longer. We are totally looking into new job options, hopefully something will come up soon. At the moment myself (the one who qualified for support) I'm again totally out of work as all the places I was working at have closed. My partner is doing some shifts as a chef in a restaurant that is open for take away/delivery but just like 4 shifts in a month. 
Not knowing what will happen makes the idea of moving somewhere else more stressful, at least here we know we are happy. But of course the money factor is also a huge one to influence our choice in what to do next. 

arte

theoretica said:

I think as others suggest that talking about your lowered income makes you less desirable as a tenant, and so the landlord less likely to agree.  I would suggest a straightforward you see places just as nice and with lower rent and while you like where you live you don't like it enough to pay so much more for it. I would also give them a while to think about it, no one likes feeling pressurised or rushed into a decision.  Are any of the comparable cheaper flats with the same agency?

The agency our landlords use seems to be on the expensive side of the rental market, they have a couple of similar flats online at the moment in our development with a higher asking price of what we are paying (about £70 more per week). Another local estate agent has instead a similar size property to ours in the same development, with an asking price of just £10 extra per week compared to what we pay now, which usually could mean they would accept a lower offer on the final price making it cheaper

Crashy_Time

arte said:

deannatrois said:

This is going to last between 3-6 months.  Its going to take a while for things to pick up for you.  Have neither have you looked for other jobs to tide you over?  Particularly the one who doesn't qualify for support? I have done every job going temporarily whilst looking for a permanent job pre child care problems. 

It will take a while for sure for things to pick up for many of us, even the support from the government won't last for much longer. We are totally looking into new job options, hopefully something will come up soon. At the moment myself (the one who qualified for support) I'm again totally out of work as all the places I was working at have closed. My partner is doing some shifts as a chef in a restaurant that is open for take away/delivery but just like 4 shifts in a month. 
Not knowing what will happen makes the idea of moving somewhere else more stressful, at least here we know we are happy. But of course the money factor is also a huge one to influence our choice in what to do next. 

You have a lot less money coming in, there are similar flats for a lot less than your landlord is charging, it seems obvious what the best option is? I`m sure the landlord will be happy to charge you more to be "happy" in their property, but I think you are better off getting a cash cushion together while you can and £300 p.m is a good enough start.

saajan_12

The % is irrelevant really. You can ask based on other comparable properties.. the logic being that the LL would only get the going rate from another tenant, after suffering through advertising costs and a void.

The LL can agree, negotiate or decline, in which case your option is to pay up or leave. Without references, or sounds like the leaving would be a BLUFF as usually LLs want income as a multiple of rent, not barely convering. What if you don't get jobs for months or years that it would take to evict? Unless you can pay a significant portion of rent upfront? So certainly ask, but you may want to think about how hard you want to push with this LL. 

getmore4less

arte said:

theoretica said:

I think as others suggest that talking about your lowered income makes you less desirable as a tenant, and so the landlord less likely to agree.  I would suggest a straightforward you see places just as nice and with lower rent and while you like where you live you don't like it enough to pay so much more for it. I would also give them a while to think about it, no one likes feeling pressurised or rushed into a decision.  Are any of the comparable cheaper flats with the same agency?

The agency our landlords use seems to be on the expensive side of the rental market, they have a couple of similar flats online at the moment in our development with a higher asking price of what we are paying (about £70 more per week). Another local estate agent has instead a similar size property to ours in the same development, with an asking price of just £10 extra per week compared to what we pay now, which usually could mean they would accept a lower offer on the final price making it cheaper

Your case for a reduction is falling apart.

There are places cheaper but not in your development.

Can you find a place you like enough for less money to be worth the hassle of moving? 

You could go periodic rather than renew to give you move options if they won't budge on rent. 

Playing the poverty card is a risky strategy. 

diego_94

Why are you renewing a contract, you will go onto rolling after your one has expired.

arte

diego_94 said:

Why are you renewing a contract, you will go onto rolling after your one has expired.

I know and I would love to go into a rolling contract or something like that. After all I've been already 4yrs here, the landlords know me and should trust me. But because they use this agency to deal with the contracts of the flat, they automatically start to write us 2 months prior to the renewal to ask if we want to renew, of course the estate agent want to get their fee. We told the landlords once that it wasn't necessary to go through the agency since both parts were happy to extend, but they seem to prefer to waste their money and keep using the estate agent even for a simple thing like this one. In fact we were even very !!!!!! the first time we renew here as the rip-off fees from the estate agents were still on and they made us pay over £100 only to confirm we wanted to renew the lease.
If there was no estate agent involved perhaps the whole thing would be easier. Landlords could save the money they spend for the agency and give us a little discount instead, it would be a better solution.