To think the landlord is taking the piss?

[Slightlyneuroricnat]

So we've been here 2 years now, 2 bedrooms house in Sutton £1000 a month
Nothing special but very near the school we want our daughter to get in to ( she is 3 so will be applying for schools next jan )
Never missed rent, no problems at all and last year redecorated the entire house as it hasn't been done for years
Estate agents came out to look at the work and landlord said he would pay for the paint as husband had done all the free labour.
Come last week and our tenancy was due to expire next month I emailed the estate agents asking if it was still a long term let to which they replied yes, they don't do longer contracts that 12 months but they would even provide a letter to the school if needed confirming this.
Today we get our renewal form through and the landlord is upping the rent by £75 a month.
So we've done all the work to make if up to a good standard for nothing only to be charged more to live here?! Wtf

That's only 7.5%. I'd be pissed off too but it's not U. The mortgage may have gone up?

Is it that the first increase in 2 years? It's not unreasonable I'm afraid. In future if you end up doing stuff to the house negotiate a discount or freeze on your rent.

Well, is it the market rate? You have said you want to stay long term, you have decided to decorate to make it nicer for you to live in. It was lettable before. If rents do not go up in line with market forces then at some stage you get a huge shock.

I imagine the rent would have gone up whether you had decorated or not. Rents are going up. The landlord paid for the materials. You decorated for your own benefit. I can understand you being a bit pissed off, but overall I think YAB a bit U.

Sorry to say it but you are a mug, I've seen loads of these stories, people improving the landlords house enabling them to charge more rent for it. Save your efforts for when you have your own place.

What are the other houses/flats in your area like? Keep the catchment area in mind, and see if your rent is comparable or competitive. It may be that you are going to be paying over the odds, and it could be worth moving. On the other hand, the extra £900 (£75 x 12 months) could be eaten up quickly in the costs of moving (not least those bloody unrefundable "referencing" fees and the rest), and you'd have to pay a bigger deposit, compared to your existing deposit (1.5 x the original month's rent).

As you are approaching primary school admission as a tenant, though, it's worth keeping a very close eye on the local market. Even if you were to get a new 12-month tenancy which took you past next January (either in this house, or in another), it could cause problems for your DD's place, if you were then to move/have to move before she started school the next September. Check your local authority's rules.

Also, I'm not sure "a letter" from a letting agency, saying it is a "long term letting", would be worth anything, as if it really were a long-term letting, they would contract for that! And it's not up to a letting agent, either, but to the LL.

All of this may or may not be connected with your re-decorating, but I am really sorry to hear your disillusioned tone. It's always a shame to realise that "your home" is not considered as such by all! Particularly gutting, as you say not much had been done for ages before. At least you didn't pay for the paint yourself!

It is possible to still negotiate on a rent increase - my DP was renting before we moved in together and his landlord upped the rent by £100/month. The tenants suggested £50/month, and they settled on that. Might be worth figuring out what you think is an acceptable figure (taking into account inflation/market rates in the area - showing you've researched it may help!) and take that back to the owner/agent.
YABU to think that because you've been a 'good' tenant that rent should stay the same indefinitely.

Mmmm agree with babywipes. Spend that energy saving and buy your own place, then you can invest your efforts into something for you!

I say this in the kindest way. I gritted my teeth through two years of our last rented house, which was a godawful new build made of spit and cardboard. But now we have our own lovely 1930s semi!

Thanks for your replies
The contract will always be up in February so I'm aware we would have to renew this year and the following year to ensure she had actually started at the primary school before moving hence the worry
I've rented for years and never had the rent put up before so this was a bit of a shock!
Just seems a bit of a joke that we did all the work, didn't ask for any sort of reimbursement, didnt charge for the wallpaper and feature wall as it was expensive, it was the estate agent who said the landlord would be happy to pay for the paint and then a few months later they up the rent!
£75 is a lot at the moment as I'm a stay at home mum although I'm well aware of the cost of moving and the likelihood of getting another house within the crazy 1 mile radius of the school isn't likely so I can only hope come next year they don't put it up even more
Impossible to buy on just one wage and impossible to save whilst renting.
Never ending cycle

Can you negotiate with the LL? We did when we rented. You're long the tenants its easier for the LL to keep you.

However you pay £1000 for a two bed house in Sutton, it sounds quite cheap. If you're talking about London.

*long term

Bluff. They'll never get a new tenant in on a few weeks notice and one month's void will make the asking of an extra 75 a month look extremely foolish.

Definitely negotiate.

If you're a good tenant your landlord is not going to risk losing you for the sake of a few quid.

YABU its 3.25% a year! Most things go up in price each year with inflation. Unless you are professional decorators who decorated it to his exact specification then I don't think you can expect to be paid for decorating, which was your choice to do.

We rent and it goes up every year. Well every 2 years as our landlord lets us have 2 year contracts as we have no interest in moving and he is a professional landlord (he has several properties in the area). We are still paying less than the market rate though at the moment. It's shot up lately. I think he is happy to have the secure tenants.

I think that you have a good deal for Sutton. You could be paying Banstead or Epsom prices . We considered moving to Sutton as DH works there but the extra rent would still leave us out of pocket with his savings in travel costs. We live just off the m23.

I think you are best off just swallowing the cost and staying where you are. You can negotiate but if it wasn't increased last year then I don't think you will get very far tbh.

Not answering your aibu at all but I have recently done school applications in two London boroughs (not sure if Sutton has the same rules) but all I needed was my tenancy agreement or council tax bill, didn't need to prove we were planning to stay there. So it might be worth checking with your LA if you haven't already,.

I've just looked on rightmove and for a nice 2 bedroom house it's £1200 a month. There are a couple of tiny ones for less that a grand but they are small looking (no pictures). I'm looking at comparable size to mine which is 2 double beds, large lounge, kitchen diner, biggish garden. I pay £875 a month but am just outside surrey so don't pay the 'surrey premium'.

Forgot to say I think you are still getting a good deal if you aren't living in a postage stamp of course

I would be emailing the estate agent with the bill for the decorating materials.

Time is on your side with this and you can't be forced to start a new lease next month.

If the current 12-month assured term of your tenancy expires in February, then you MUST have been served notice of the increase before your rent payment was made in December (i.e. two calendar months). The same notice period would apply if the landlord wanted to end the tenancy.

On the basis that this hasn't happened, the tenancy will revert to a periodic basis but the landlord still needs to give you two months' notice of any changes.

As for the agent saying that they don't do longer contracts, this is purely & simply because they want to screw extra fees out of you and your landlord for "negotiating" the new lease.

I'd suggest contacting your landlord directly (if you can - presumably their details are on the tenancy agreement) and tell them what terms you would like to offer. Your landlord can then choose whether to accept - and assuming they do, whether they want the agents to draw up the new tenancy agreement or if they are happy to use one of the many cheaper "DIY" options that are readily available.

Was just about to echo what futuredad wrote, although you may have been served notice before, some landlords will do that to avoid the exact problem futuredad described.

If you've not been served notice, then you're in a much stronger position, you could just up and leave on the anniversary, you could keep paying the same old rent until you were served a valid notice of change (and you could still leave then of course, 2 months notice required almost certainly)

You may be getting a "good deal", but then again the landlord is getting a pretty good deal too, if he decides to try and increase the rent, he might make 875 quid over the year. If he decides to kick you out, he'll probably not get any new tenants until after you've left (you're not going to be very helpful about viewings, and will certainly tell everyone who visits what an arsehole the landlord is having you do free improvements then kicking you out), So he'll likely lose a months rent, and pay agents fees losing him a lot more than 875 quid.

In reality he's probably a perfectly nice guy, the agents are just trying to get a load of fees for a new contract, and make themselves look good to him by getting a rent increase. Just contact him directly, tell the agents to bog off and negotiate your own deal, either nothing or a bit more depending on what you feel like.

Remember if there are 1200 flats being advertised they're probably not going for that in southwest London my last three flats have all been accepted over 10% below what was advertised.

I don't think you can expect any kind of financial compensation for wallpaper fora feature wall. That is the sort of thing that is very specific to taste, and most LLs would probably consider getting rid of something like that before re letting.

You have spent money on decoration to your personal taste, and that only really benefits you. The paint was a reasonable cost for the ll to cover.

Rents do go up, it's something I would expect after two years, but it sounds like you have the place for as long as you want it unless something drastically changes, so it's good that you have been able to decorate how you want to.

Rent going up 7.5% after two years is not at all unreasonable in the South East of England. Wages in the South East have gone up more than that due to booming financial services. Rents follow wages.

As a LL myself, I don't mind tenants decorating but only if they return it to neutral again before leaving.

I've not increased the rent of my houses and the minimum anyone has been in is 3 years now. Trouble is, by not increasing rent annually I have a ceiling limit I can increase in future annually so won't ever be able to catch up given the rate rents for my particular property types have increased. Its more important to me to keep my good tenants though and all the time the mortgage rate remains the same my rents won't increase.

Morebeta. What utter bollocks. Rent increases are far outstripping most people's pay increase which mostly aren't keeping up with inflation.

OP chances are his costs haven't gone up that much. I'd try to negotiate if I was you.