To ask what landlords plans are long term...

[Oopsusernamealreadytaken]

Bit of background, we’ve lived in our current rental property for over 6 years. Our landlady is lovely and has improved the property by putting in a new bathroom (4 years ago) and also is up to date on checks. She rarely bothers us for an inspection - maybe once a year or so and always gives notice if she needs to pop in for whatever reason.

A few weeks ago we had a letter about a rent increase. There wasn’t really an update given as to why other than she hadn’t given us one yet and she felt it was fair. Which I guess is fair, although we couldn’t contest it either way.

In the property we have made a lot of upgrades to decor (I know, fancy wanting to make it a home) and have done a lot of minor repairs (fixing a broken pipe, resetting fence posts, fixing small leaks) everything we’ve done has improved the property and subsequent value if she wanted to sell. We have done all of this with her permission, and she’s never offered to pay/pary pay.

I feel a bit sad that she’s decided to up the rent, it’s going to push us into the bracket of coasting week to week with no luxuries to having to cut other areas such as food etc. We already work all the hours we can due to having a Sen child.

So anyway enough of life story, would it be unreasonable to ask her what her plans our for the house? I know she’s well within her rights to not tell us, but equally we don’t want to pay out of our own pocket to improve a house that is going to be sold within a year. (I know that it can happen regardless)

I know we are lucky to have a roof over our heads, I know we are lucky to have a well maintained home to live in, I know we shouldn’t have probably done those repairs, but I fear if we start bugging her for every small repair now she will want to sell up and as a tenant that’s probably your worst fear come true.

What should we say? We have a meeting in a few weeks.

MsOliphant

The council would say that children ‘need’ their own bedrooms, would they

In certain circumstances, yes. Age, Sex, and medical conditions etc all come in to it

Like I said, deliberate overcrowding is illegal - look into it. Obviously you have many questions

If it is a private rental then there is no minimum amount of bedrooms etc the same as if you buy. Your kids will share!

AiryFairy - The council will not actually act until the OP is made homeless. The LL is unlikely to evict OP if she continues to pay. Some councils will actually not rehouse on notice to evict but wait until proceedings have been taken. Some councils have no properties available and the evicted tenant will be put up in temporary accommodation such as B&B. If you are support worker I assume it must be an area where there is a massive glut of social housing if people get rehoused at the hint of a £50 rise!

Yes, AiryFairy.

So children under ten count as half a person and can legally share 1 room regardless of sex.

Babies don’t factor at all.

A couple with three children under ten can live in a one bed flat with a living room and NOT meet the council’s definition of overcrowding.

So I doubt the council would say that a three bed house was an absolute necessity- if they did deem it be a necessity, they’d likely advise moving to a cheaper area.

I really do not get the rental market and rising and falling rents at all. If the house is the same as it was when I first started renting it, how does it increase in value?

We rent a shithole that has just had a rent increase (which will be paid for by housing benefit as the LHA has gone up, I suppose because the rents have gone up in the market). No way is it worth what they are charging for it but just because all the other shitholes charge around the same, it's fair.

Rental in this country is absolutely fucked.

With inflation....that your shopping bill/gas electric/council bill all goes up? I find it surprising that some people on here think there accommodation bills are excluded from inflation

Yes, but why does it happen? At all. Inflation, that is. Why can't something just be a set price? And why does it seem to be continually going up? What's happening...

Can you shop around and switch any of your utilities or other bills to find the extra? It's something I'm not very good at, but spent some time yesterday and managed to save more that much by changing broadband provider, update mobile contracts and changing energy supplier. Was cross with myself that I hadn't taken the time to do it sooner!

@ShalomJackie your name! Love it! My name was Ohshitonit until the spooky name change

I’m currently looking into my bills and seeing what I could be paying too much for and try and cut down that way before looking into our food bill (we are already shopping at Aldi so I’d be surprised if I can lower it)

Thanks for all your input, I’m going to meet up with her and have a discussion and see if we can tie down to a year assured tenancy. And explain we won’t be able to carry out the repairs, which is a shame as she’s elderly and doesn’t use an agent to help her.

Oh god @MaryDollNesbitt I totally agree, 50 a month increase would really screw us over. And I haven't had an actual pay rise in years as I'm a midwife and we all know about that load of BS don't we!
If my landlord put our rent up I'd have to sacrifice food money.

Also OP, I've been doing repairs too and these responses have put me off. I've been doing them as my landlord is poorly with cancer but I suppose I'll have to burden him now

With a tenant that has been great for 6 years, I would welcome a 3-year contract and would negotiate on rent
Obviously not for someone new though

Yup, never pay for repairs yourself - that's money you could save for rent rises etc

@MsOliphant I think it's completely unfair, you sign a tenancy agreement of a set monthly rental price. Why should it have to go up every year? Why am I an idiot, landlords are obviously idiots. It's like the tenant randomly saying can we reduce the rent now. No obviously not it should be a set price and that's that

Blimey, the naivety totally amazes me. If my buy to let mortgages go up, so will the rent I ask for. If the rent locally goes up, why should I keep it below market value? I mean, I currently do, because my tenants are fab, but it’s ridiculous to imagine that in 10 years, the rents would be the same.

Can we stop with the oh my poor landlord, now I’ll have to ask the elderly/sick person to do maintenance etc? It’s what they HAVE to do, they’re landlords, it’s the law. We suck it up or sell. Tough on us.

No, we don't have to stop with it, its a bloody thread and that was just a thought I had, I felt guilty.

It happens Cucciolo because the price of goods goes up.

Are you paying the same for your other services and food as you were six years ago. Why should a LL be expected to not increase their charges too.

My landlord insurance goes up every year, my LL agents fees have to be paid, I have to pay the mortgage on the house I let.

I have just paid out over several thousand pounds on the house because it needed a new boiler and as I had a new tenant I had the place repainted and there were various other things to be done such as replacement of all the sinks etc and a new fridge/freezer. Things wear out and need to be replaced. I had to replace the washing machine earlier this year.

Before the previous tenants moved in I had two terrible tenants who both left me with a wrecked house that needed a lot of repairs, new carpet throughout etc etc. All this costs a lot of money.

The last bad tenant I had didn't pay any rent for the six months it took to get them evicted for non payment of rent.

It's a business like any other. LL are not running charities and like all businesses they have to see some sort of return on their investment.

Dreaming That is what I pay my letting agent to deal with. She is very good, so it all happens as it should do.

I'm a landlord for many years now. The problem that we have now is that we are getting squeezed from every angle. Higher interest, no discounts for interest rates. Landlord licensing etc.
We hate the current climate as we need to pass some of the cost to the tenants.
We are exhausted. I'll suggest you share your thoughts with her and see if there is some wiggle room.
Everything started to change for landlords last year and it's going to get worse.
We are easy figures of hate. Some of us are decent hard working people.

it happens Cucciolo because the price of goods goes up.

Are you paying the same for your other services and food as you were six years ago. Why should a LL be expected to not increase their charges too.

I get they go up. I'm wondering why they seem to just go up and up and up. And do wages rise to meet these inflated prices?

The increase seems fair enough over 6 years.
Could you ask if you can have the increase over 2 years, so £50 pm this year and save the other £50 when you can for £100 increase next year.
If you tell the LL you are struggling she may agree.
tenants you can trust are worth a lot.
Please stop doing repairs these are the LL job, and they would only sell if this was their intention, not because you asked them to fulfil their obligation to maintain their property.

Cucciolo
We know wages have gone up very little for years and actually rents have not gone up that much but still more than wages. Rents have of course risen recently, which is why people are feeling the squeeze. Part of that is to offset the change in taxation.

To put figures on it, when I first started renting out my house it was valued at around 80k and I was getting about £475 per month. Now the house is worth over 3 times the amount but the top rent I could get in the current market £875. Therefore rents in this particular southern location haven’t even doubled in 20 years when house prices have more than trebled.

As for services and food. Services, fuel, cigarettes etc (not that I smoke) have gone up a lot whereas food and clothes not so much so imo.

I've just looked at the house we rented about 14 years ago. It's gone up nearly 75% in that time or just over £35 a year. (not London) That would be over £200 in 6 years.

The problem you have is either the landlady could put it up a little bit each year which would be less of a shock, but you'd have had 5 years of paying more. Or she can do a jump every so many years.

We've had that at work where the parking jumped from £1 to £1.50. People were horrified when first told, but when it was pointed out that it hadn't gone up for 20 years, then almost everyone felt this was more than reasonable. If it had gone up 5p each year it would have been a pain in the neck for change and would now be £2, but people probably wouldn't have really noticed it going up (and would have expected it to each year) so we wouldn't have had the initial horrified reaction.

Unfortunately, this just sounds like a little unexpected reminder that you have a business arrangement. I assume, as you'd been kindly helping out with repairs that are the responsibility of the LL, that you might have thought you had a more friendly arrangement.

The increase is perfectly reasonable but like you, I might have expected leniency from someone I'd been doing favours for.

You live and learn though and your plans for discussing the length of tenancy and stopping the repairs seem perfectly fair, hope it goes well.

is it in-line with other rent costs now?
When my last landlord did it (it was a 40% rise) we stopped maintaining it. It was an awful kick in the stomach, we had a nice relationship if we did bits that needed doing (I’m talking new boilers, heaters, showers, painting, plastering, tiling) and they left us alone. Until we got that letter. As another poster says it’s a horrid reminder.

This rental market is no life for a family.

On a practical side are you sorted to move if you need to? When our last landlord sold we had genuinely no clue until the letter landed on our doorstep with 2 months notice, it was horrific. We’d moved in with a baby so still had all the baby stuff etc in the loft in case we had another. Our new landlord wanted us in within a month to secure the new property we had to agree to it. So we had to find all the new deposit etc, clear and pack the old house.
I am much more brutal about what we keep now (which makes me really sad) as I can’t go through that again!

You can try and negotiate the rise down if your brave and other stuff is cheaper.

I'm a landlord, and I wouldn't expect a tenant to pay for any kind of repairs. If they want to do decorating or change something or whatever, that's a different matter, but that would be discussed and agreed. So I find that aspect of your message odd, not the minor rent increase after six years.

I do think unfortunately that after 6 years of no rental rises, £50 a month is not unfair (although some warning would be good). I do agree it is now fair of OP to say they can no longer afford to do repairs (in the long run this may prove more costly for the landlord).

In parts of the South West, there is an awful lot of deprivation and joblessness and it is not as simple as saying she/her husband should get another job- getting another job may mean an increased commute with more costs or the need to run a second car, which may be impossible to fund. And of course there are plenty of "just about managing" people for whom an extra £50 a month would push them over the edge!

It is also not always as simple as moving as there are not always lots of rental properties available with e.g. good public transport links/close to family support.

Have you checked you are 100% receiving all the benefits you are entitled to? www.entitledto.co.uk/

Could you earn some extra cash from home in the evenings e.g. by doing surveys? You can also sometimes do product tests for free products which may help a little.

Sorry not to be more helpful!