excessive rent increase

elsien

Leggitte said:

I've always thought that £25 increase, every other year is acceptable. In your case that would equate to an additional £50 as you did not have an increase after 2 years. To compensate for that £60 also looks acceptable. Anything higher seems high to me.

Surely that depends on how much the rent is in the first place? And whether you’re taking Chelsea townhouse or run down HMO is one of the more deprived areas of the country? 

pjcox2005

HampshireH said:

What does your tenancy agreement allow for in terms of a rent increase? Are they complying with that?

I'd agree 21% is excessive. I always think it's unfair when landlord play catch up on rent increases. If your landlord had increase it by 7% a year you probably wouldn't be as unhappy as it would be more manageable / planned

You really don't know though, if someone was charging £100 for a two bed flat in London and went up 21% then it wouldn't be an excessive increase. If they were charging market rate or above then a 21% increase clearly would be.

OP seems to suggest proposed new rent is in line with the market although some empty places. If that's the case then they got a bargain originally and now it's being corrected either with this tenant or a new one which seems fine.

I expect the answer is somewhere in the middle and that if the OP negotiates they'll accept the £50 increase. End of the day, landlord wants to avoid void periods, but does the OP really want the cost and hassle of moving if they are unlikely to find a place to rent cheaper than current rent plus £50/£75.

saajan_12

meme86 said:

so my tenancy is coming up for renewal early next year, and the letting agents have come to me saying that the landlord wants me to sign for another 12months, which i am happy to do, but they want to increase the rent by 21%

To me that does seem to be a very excessive increase. Just wondering what everyone else's thoughts are?
Would a 10% increase still be a little steep?

Its not really about the % increase, as the current rent could be super cheap, making this just a catch up. In that case, you would actually have benefitted with the rent being lower upto now. 

The real question is how does the new rent compare to market rents for that size property in that area?
  -  If its in line, then you have little to negotiate. You can always ask, but if they refuse, your alternative is to incur moving costs, hassle, potential rent / deposit overlap just to pay the same elsewhere. 
  -  If its higher, then you can negotiate harder and point out it would be silly for the LL to refuse. If they let it go periodic and serve a Section 13 notice to increase rent, then you'd dispute via tribunal and the above market rent would not be allowed. If they move to evict, they'll suffer a void, readvertising etc, only to get a lower rent than they want. 

dimbo61

Does the Landlord even know that his agent wants to increase the rent by 21% ?
Why not try and speak to the LL direct  rather than his agent.
Explain your a good tenant who has been reliable in paying the rent for the last 3 years but would struggle with paying another £120 a month.

Leggitte

elsien said:

Leggitte said:

I've always thought that £25 increase, every other year is acceptable. In your case that would equate to an additional £50 as you did not have an increase after 2 years. To compensate for that £60 also looks acceptable. Anything higher seems high to me.

Surely that depends on how much the rent is in the first place? And whether you’re taking Chelsea townhouse or run down HMO is one of the more deprived areas of the country? 

True, but because the OP pays roughly the same as I used to (£600/month) I did not bother translating it to a percentage. In percentages I would say that up to 5% increase every 2 years seems reasonable. Which means that in the case of the OP a 10% increase sounds reasonable to me. 21% seems excessive.