To think a 10% rent rise is too much?

[kimi]

So today the letting agent rings and says that as our lease is up for re-newing he has spoken to the landlords (they live in Canada) and they are happy to renew with a "small" rent raise.
The small raise is £100 a month making the rent £1,150 per month.
My response was a un-lady like fuck off!!!!!!

It is a Ex council house, ok it has a nice extension on it but it is nothing special.
The people before us move out on police advice as he was a drug dealer and had scum come and hold his girlfriend and kids at gun point, (although that was the people not the area, we do not live in THAT type of area).

I am so stressed and I don't need this at all. I do not really want to move as I do not want to unsettle the kids as DS1 moves schools in September and I am not going to be the sort of mother who drags my kids from house to house, they coped well with the move after DH1 and I split.

You would think they would be glad that they have decent people living in the house and we pay the rent on time every month.

I am so fed up, I hate living in "someone else's" house as it is, but I do not really want to have all the stress of a move.
I guess the f*wit has us over a barrel and we will have to pay up.

Sorry for the rant........

SP, we just have different views. I remember trying to find a flat to rent in 1982. It was very very hard. Shortholds were only just coming in and only for limited periods. Most tenancies before then if you let you could NEVER get the tenant out and some tenants were in prime London properties at absolutely tiny rents and some still are so no person with any sense let property. It's better now in a free market because if there are too many landlords chasing too few tenants then rents go down. Rental yields are much less than they were I think as too many people have piled into buy to let just as property prices are likely to stabilise for a year or two.

i agree with xenia on the lower rent issue. there are TOO many landlords who rushed into buy to let which means that rents don't increase much, most landlords i speak to say they make barely enough or sometimes not enough to cover the mortgage. that is good news for tenants.

however, i disgaree that there is a shortage of tenants. most people still can not afford to buy, lack of reasonably priced properties in the big cities, so they end up renting for many many years before they can afford to buy. even my City collaegues who had just started their careers were still renting. esp. the single ones still couldn't afford anything decent in the nice parts of London.

Any way, I still think it is worth checking with your local council. You don't have to be a Council tenant to get your rent checked, the assessments apply equally to privately let properties.

The last landlady i had before we got married, decided to put our rent up by £20 a month. Not a vast sum, but it was annoying enough (she was such a stingy old cow, would never repair things without a big moan and groan, tried to get away with doing basic repairs, etc. so i went and read about my rights as a tenant, etc as ammunition), we left a few months later as she was just too much of a pain in the you know where.

there are landlords out there who just don't know when they see a good tenant, end up pissing off the good ones and always end up with bad ones which is what they deserve really ; )

We rent and are having to move, due to the lovely 6 month assured tenancy thing. We moved 6 months ago as well. Hopefully we can stay in new property for longer (we are signing up for a year) as the landlord approves of us (we had to go round for a drink and be vetted ). Bit nervous as we also rent out a property in central London and tenants have only renewed for 6 months. Agent has put rent up "in line with inflation" to GBP 1700 per month for tenants, which seems a lot (but cannot remember what it was before, 16 something I think, so not a huge hike).

xenia - I have never said we should return to the sitting tenancy system, I don't know why you assume that's the only alternative.

tenants do need some protection and some rent controls as kimi's example demonstrates.

They have agreed to a 4% rise.
I am glad we do not have to move, but will get us more sorted out (looking to buy) by this time next year then they can stuff their over priced house