To raise their rent every year?

[Fev11]

For various reasons I have recently started renting out a house and plan to keep doing this for a long time. The tenants have said they plan to stay for at least 10+ years if possible.

What is reasonable as far as future rents are concerned? If they were only planning to stay for e.g. 2 years, I would probably keep the rent the same, but 10 years is a long time so my gut feeling is to put something in place where it rises each year in line with inflation.

The tenants are great but I suppose I am doing this on a business footing. For any long-term renters and landlords out there, what do you do, or think is fair?

I would evaluate the situation annually but wouldn't raise it every year. If my landlords raised rent every year I'd probably find something else. But there is no need for you to commit to same price from here to eternity.

I'm a landlord, my flat is currently being managed by a letting agent and they advise if they think the rent should increase. Last year they stated a small increase but I decided to keep it as it is as my tenants are good and the property is well looked after.
If they decide to leave then I would likely have to cover a months worth of loss of rent while they found new tenants and a finders fee for the letting agent of half a months rent...plus other fees, general cleaning and maintenance costs to get it ready for a new let. The amount of money i would lose would wipe out the costs of the inflation mark up. Worth doing your sums to see what you'd really be gaining.

I rented for a few years before buying and thankfully never had the rent increased, it’s such an unfair thing to do.

I wouldn't to be honest. We've been renting our house for 2 years and our landlord is fantastic to the point that I wouldn't actually mind if he raised the rent slightly! Leave it a year or two and see how things work out.

On a long term tenant - I would leave yourself the option of increasing the rent at points in the future as none of us have a crystal ball. If there is no need to increase rents - mortgage rates dont skyrocket etc - then I would probably leave it as is but I would not block the option personally.

Council/social house tenants will see their rents rise by 2.7% this year - Councils are allowed CPI + 1% in rent rise annually for the next 5 years..

Just done a back of a fag packet calculation - if you raise the rent by say 3% every 2 years over 10 years, but have to factor in some loss of rent every time you do a rent rise then over 10 years, the amount of extra income you make is marginal. This does not factor in the time hassle on yourself or the fact that every time you will probably have to spend time and money sprucing up the property between rentals.
Stupid to piss off a good long term tenant...

I think it's fair and reasonable that stable, reliable long term tenants get to benefit from being a pleasure to have living there by getting effectively an annual incremental discount on their rent. The steadier they are, the bigger the discount. So long as it doesn't go so far that its no longer financially viable to have them of course!

We have had our rent raised once while
We were tenants - the landlord raised in by £50 per month but tbh as someone said earlier in the post we did look around for other properties and found a nicer one for the same price - so we moved.

The house we moved out of was empty for 3 months According to neighbours before a new tenant moved in and so I’m guessing the landlord lost money on that - no idea what rent it went for in the end .

My DD rents in London and has had to pay admin fees for a new contract each year and there is always a rent rise as well. 10 years would be a long time with no rent increase. Make sure you give an AST tenancy not something very long term that would tie you in. In 10 years you will have repairs,may have replacement carpets/white goods etc. to factor into costs. It depends on the local market. I wouldn't give any guarantees about rent increases, keep an eye on the local market and if prices change a lot after a few years then maybe increase rent a bit (with a long notice of it)

I have been in the same rental accommodation now for 12 years, I haven’t had a rent rise yet! I appreciate that may be longer than average without a rent rise but as I see you have learnt on here yearly rent increases are not common, thankfully.

I don't rent any more but I did for many years. I never had the rent increased in any property I stayed in, and the longest I stayed in one place was six years.

I've not had time to read the full thread but this may vary depending where you are in the UK. In scotland you can only issue a Private residential tenancy which has no end date. You can only raise the rent 1 in any 12 month period and this is your perogative. There is a notification form you have to fill out and give a period of notice(i think it is 2 months) so it doesnt necessarily need to be in your tenancy agreement. You can go through the scottish governments website 'being a landlord' to create your tenancy agreement and it will pull off the ntoes document which you are legally obliged to issue your tenant with.

My tenant is "good" in that he takes very good care of the property and is obviously keen to stay long term, but is "bad" in that he is really rude and has fabricated lies about the property designed to guilt trip me or humiliate me (except I discovered they were lies). I can't bear him, the slimy git, and would love to price him out of the flat by raising the rent to the new high levels in the area. But I don't. Because the status quo is convenient and voids are costly. This may change in the future as the changes in tax relief are squeezing the margins.

I find it odd that most editorial in the media is about how to protect tenants from being turfed out, whereas I feel (and this thread confirms) that landlords are only too happy to hang on to good tenants.

My MIL rented a house for 14 years, never once had the rent increased. She was a good tenant and the land lady would rather keep her on the rent she was on than potentially get new people in for a higher rate but wouldn't look after the house. Me and my OH then took over the rent when MIL went elsewhere and she still kept it the same until we left 2 years later, it was only about £50-75 under market rate. We also rented privately so she didn't pay estate agent management fees.

Depends on how much money you are making and what your tenants are like. If they are great, I would try and keep them and therefore not increase rent or only increase marginally.

Geez if our rent was raised every year we'd have to move house every year.

We do raise our rent every year. The letting agent does it automatically. It’s never a large increase, but we are good landlords, look after the property and have done things like replace the carpets without prompting.
We also provide all appliances and replace them without any fuss.
Our tenants change, I’d say every 2 or 3 years, but we are in London so a high turnover anyway. I don’t think it’s because of the rent increase.
My friend rents and has agreed upfront with the landlord no increase for 2 years.

Mine is raised by 4% every year. at one point in 2015 my old landlord after 4 years added 25%. I left the year after now the rent cap is in it law it cannot exceed is 4%. I'm an exceptional tenant.

I've had tenants in my house in the UK for nearly 10 years - we started with 12m contracts and a rise in rent (pushed for by the managing agents because obviously their percentage also goes up) every year - but after it became clear that they were excellent long term tenants, we've pushed the renewal and price rise out to every 2 years instead of every year. Saves us money on the renewal contracts (well, just me now but whatever) and they feel more stable knowing the rent isn't going up every 12 months.

I never had my rent routinely upped yearly nor did I do it as a landlord. I actually don’t know any landlord that does. I mean if your mortgage and costs don’t go up why would the rent? Obviously 10 years is a long time but I would leave it for at least 2 years or you may well price your good tenants out of the house.

As a rider to my comment about 2 yearly rental increase though, I should say that I control the rate of increase and the rent is now at least £100 pcm under the market rate for the area. The agents aren't overly happy that I won't push the rent up (again, their percentages) but I'd rather take less money on the rent and have decent tenants who look after the place.

If you have good tenants that look after the house then no, definitely not every year anyway, maybe once during the time period if they stay ten years. You risk making it unaffordable for them and may not have as nice as tenants next time.

My mil just left her rented property, been there 10yrs, landlord only put the rent up once in that time, she kept it immaculate, always reported problems and repairs to him and was sad to go. Property is now void and he’s asking a further £150 more on rent than what she was last paying...it’s not been taken up yet.

I also don't increase rents for good tenants. The only time I've raised them has been with bad ones that I would ideally like to leave.

Apologies for the hijack, but can I ask if any landlords out there can recommend a decent landlord insurer? I've used the same company for years but recently had cause to claim for the first time and they have been absolutely atrocious. Looking for recommendations to change when my policy expires.

I've been renting my house now for 5 years and never had a rent increase. I only hear from the LL/agent once a year to arrange the gas safety check and that's it.

About 3 years ago they agreed I could decorate a bit and get new carpets ...they contributed the exact amount I asked them for after checking the house before and after the work. I spent quite a bit of my own money and probably could have asked them to contribute more but it's important for me to be comfortable in my home. Obviously they benefit because I'm taking care of their investment.

If I had annual increases I'd be calling them out to deal with all the minor issues I sort out myself to get my money's worth. Where as now I'd only contact them if urgent for something like the boiler etc.

I should be moving soon and if I'm home for viewings I'd encourage people to take the house. I actually remember the last couple here said the same to me that the agent/LL were very good.

My last rental the landlord didn't raise the rent for 2/3 years, he then decided to put the rent up 40% one day to top wack of what it would be if it had heating and double glazing etc etc. Our eldest was about to start school and had done all the prep work for that so we couldn't move. That was a real bloody shock to the system. We are really good tenants, he hadn't spent a bean on the property, we had done the maintenance that he should have done, as well as re carpeting and repainted as he hadn't for years before we moved in.

Our current one, has gone up a nominal amount every year (£25ish) which i think is liveable.