New landlord is upping my rent by £250pm

[Snoophoggyhog]

My landlady passed away before Christmas and has left this house and a few others to her nephew. I'd heard nothing for months other than from a solicitor to say to now pay the rent to them which I've been doing. Yesterday I received a solicitors letter saying that my new landlord can't afford the inheritance tax and therefore proposes to raise my rent by £250pm! My rent has been a bit lower than other houses in my area because it is quite dated and the landlady wouldn't do any work on it. Over the 8 years I've lived here I've paid for a new kitchen, carpet and redecorated throughout, new windows, cavity wall and loft insulation, had a shower fitted, new radiators and boiler, new fence panels and other odd jobs. There's things that need doing but it seems he just wants to put the rent up and not maintain the house. It's never had gas and electric safely checks and I had all the fire alarms fitted. AIBU to say I won't pay more rent until the house is modernized and safety checks done or will he just hand me my notice? It says in the letter if I can't afford the extra money I will have to move out. There are no oother properties suitable nearby and my ds 5 is settled at his local school. TY in advance for any advice, experiences

There is no law regarding how much a landlord can put the rent up by. Me and DH were renting and our landlord also did not spend a penny on the property although it needed it. He did though have gas safety checks carried out.

He put the rent up several times and each time it was by at least £200 a month. Last year he wanted to put it up again by £250 a month and when we said no he served us with an eviction notice.

We also had spent money on his house - new carpets, redecorating every room, new boiler when the existing one broke down etc. Yes it was silly but we had no choice really as we wanted to live in the area and wanted the house to look decent and be warm.

Thought so. He's a bit of a legend in the farming community.

No practical advice but good luck

Right so:

You currently have a statutory rolling (periodic) tenancy by default.

Putting the rent up is changing the tenancy. You do not have to agree to this. If you don’t agree to it, normally a landlord could take you to court for possession with a section 21.

HOWEVER: you don’t have a gas safety check, and I’m guessing you don’t have a how to rent booklet either?

This means you cannot be served a s21 until you have both of these, or if they serve one it will be invalid. As such I would suggest you : negotiate a much much smaller increase and (possibly if an appropriate opportunity arises) explain that you can pay inheritance tax in instalments over 10 years: www.gov.uk/paying-inheritance-tax/yearly-instalments and definitely DONT point out that he can’t evict you without these things, as otherwise he can then just provide these things.

Separately: your deposit almost certainly hasn’t been protected in this set up. Worth checking as you can get between 1 and 3x your deposit back if you take to court (in a v v v simple process) but probably worth waiting til you want to leave for that.

No gas safety check? Why have you tolerated this? There should also be a legionnaires

How do you know if these things have been done -do you get given copies of the certificate annually?

I don't want to worry you OP but posters saying tenants have lots of rights, the rent can't be put up by that much and you can't easily be evicted are wrong.

Our landlord served an eviction notice making out he was selling the house. We tried to argue our case in Court but the Judge wasn't interested so we got 21 days to move out

This has some useful advice though I would see a solicitor:

www.gov.uk/private-renting/rent-increases

Do they know the work that you have done?

Can you threaten to claim for the cost? Did you have any agreement verbally that if you did these things you could stay for XX years etc?

Etymology23 Actually the state of the law regarding s 21 notices and gas safety certificates is that if the landlord did not provide the gas safety certificate, he cannot ever serve a s21 for that tenancy. This cannot be remedied by providing a gas safety certificate. The landlord has to issue a new fixed term tenancy with the gas safety cert. Then two months before the end of the term can serve s21. Can't remember the case but it's recent, last 6 months or so.

Might be worth calling your local authorities housing team as well, they maybe able to help.

@mydogisthebest is correct, landlords can raise the rent however they wish. As a tenant you can accept or decline. Usually a decline would result in the landlord giving you notice to leave.
I work in property management and usually we advise landlords if they want to give the tenants a rent increase to do so when the contact is up for renewal, as that means the tenant can extend and pay the increase or end their contract as was originally agreed.

@Honflyr wrt the certificates for gas safety, etc. You can ask your landlord for a copy at any time. I'm not sure they are legally obligated to give you a copy, but they are legally obligated to ensure the checks are conducted annually. You would usually be aware if the check had been done as you would have given access to the contractor to check the boiler and gas appliances.

Thank you @Etymology23. I don't have a rentbook. The LL wanted me to pay by cheque but she wouldn't cash them in for months at a time and I like to know where I'm up to so insisted on s.o. No deposit was paid or contract given.

I would have to let the gas and electric safety people in to do the tests or give the LL permission to let them in but she didn't even have a key and didn't live very locally plus I'd of been issued with certificates.

@mydogisthebest that's what I'm worried about. The solicitors letter said if I don't agree to new rate then they would have to serve me notice.

jonb Even better then, right? Glad to hear it, I’ve been out of the delights of renting for more than a year now, so my knowledge is getting less current.

How does that work with whether or not the tenant accepts the new tenancy and the possible rent change on a new tenancy? (Plus any letting agent fees?)/ could you point me in the direction of the case?

How do you know if these things have been done -do you get given copies of the certificate annually

Honfleur yep, you get the main certificate for you to keep and a carbon copy to give to the tenant.

@Snoophoggyhog with regards to the solicitor saying you will be getting an AST soon - I presume this will include details of your (already paid and protected) deposit.
As a previous poster has advised your deposit should be protected within a scheme and I am pretty sure it probably hasn't been. This may give you some leverage against them in terms of raising the rent, but no guarantee, as you can take them for up to 3 x the deposit amount if not protected.
Do not sign any AST until you have thoroughly gone through it, checking all dates, amounts (they will just include the higher rent amount in there) and all other terms, especially notice periods

Thanks @Scrowy. I don't see him as a legend right now though 😂. He can't be that hard up if he's planning on opening a cafe, farm shop and holiday lets!
My rent hasn't been raised for the whole 8 years I've been here so not entirely against it, just not so much and want the work doing to bring it in line with other properties at a similar rental price. Also I don't think it should be down ro me to effectively cover his inheritance tax bill! I can't argue that I've done the work as although it needed doing it was my decision and I knew the LL wouldn't do it due to previous comments about how people live in Africa

I was never asked to pay a deposit

I wasn't meaning legend in the postive sense.

Leg End perhaps, as they say colloquially around here.

I'm confused, are you not a sitting tenant with so little official paperwork?

You've rented somewhere for 8 years at £200 below market value with no contract to protect you, no safety checks etc. off an old lady who wasn't going to live forever. Yet, instead of saving that money for a deposit to buy a place of your own or move to rent somewhere in a better state, you chose to spend thousands on improving a property which didn't belong to you. The nephew can't be prosecuted for not doing the safety checks his aunt failed to do for 8 years but he does need to do them now, pronto. He can't be that silly, cows or no cows, as he obviously thought your rent was too low. I'm afraid it's you who has behaved in a rather naive way, reckless even. If you can't afford the rent increase, all you can do is appeal to his better nature or start looking for a new rental and school. I expect he is looking to have to pay many tens of thousands in death duties. He may be better selling up.

Sorry, I omitted providing the tenancy was granted on or after 1 Oct 2015.

Tenancies where you take full responsibility are more common in the country. We used to live in an estate village- half the houses were rented from 1 large farm/estate. The leases were long and cheap but you had to do all repairs and maintenance. They were always snapped up.

Could you respond and say "I have considered your offer. Please note that if I am forced to move then I will be taking with me the following improvements I have made and returning the house to the condition it was in when I rented it include brief description of your improvements and attach photos. I estimate the most you could get for the rental without my improvements is insert figure that's less than your current rent. I propose a rental increase to insert amount that's slightly more than your current rent so they don't feel as though they've lost the negotiation entirely. I note that I am not obliged offer this rental increase in the absence of insert ref to gas certificate, any genuine safety issues and any other obligations the LL has failed to meet, but I do like living in the house and will continue to take excellent care of your investment". I don't live in the UK though so don't understand the finer details of UK tenancy laws.

The landlord is obligated by statute to provide the tenant with a copy of the gas safety certificate before the tenancy commences.

He does sound like an odd character!

I did wonder about sitting tennant but I don't know much about it or how long I'm covered for. I really don't want to fight but also don't want to just be turfed out with few options of where to go. If he said said the rent would be going up in say 4 months and the necessary work and checks would be done in the meantime I would be happy at that but can't see it going that way.
The sad thing is the letter off the solicitors said he wants to continue to rent to me as that's what his auntie would want but I'm guessing that's just a cheap shot at getting me to sign new agreement plus the fact his auntie never put the rent up suggests she wouldn't have wanted this!

Serving notice can be a long drawn out process, you don't actually have to leave until they've been to court. Maybe it'll give you sometime to save up some money to move elsewhere?

I dong think there is anything illegal about not giving a deposit, it's simply the landlords decision. Also not having a signed contract is not ideal but you'd still have tenants rights now regardless.

If you really want to stay there I think you may have to suck it up really but I'd be pushing for the repairs to be complete and if the worse comes to the worse take as much with you as you can.