to think landlord can't evict family just to increase rent?

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

Our neighbours' landlord wanted to put their rent up by £250 a month, which they can't afford. So they have been given notice to leave. The parents both work, but their income has been reduced during lockdown and they have two small children. They're excellent neighbours, so I can't imagine they've done anything to break the terms of their tenancy.

I thought the government had put a stop on evictions at present? (I can't find where I read this now.) Does anyone know if there's anything my neighbours can do?

Thanks for pointing out the obvious Whitney. What makes you think I don't appreciate that? The discussion had moved on from the particular circumstances of op's neighbours to more general comments about market rent.

Wow £250 extra. I own a property I rent out and I thought you could increase rent by 10% so unless it’s already renting for £2500pcm !! I’ve not put my tenants rent up in 10 years he pays on time and looks after the house, I feel lucky to have him there to be honest so wouldn’t want to force him out for the sake of a bit more money

It may be you're not getting the full story. They may have got into arrears during the pandemic and the landlord has asked for £250 a month extra to cover the arrears.

What are the terms and conditions in their contract? As pp have suggested, the LL might have been keeping the rent below market value for years- there could be a while back story here. Also, if it’s an area with high rents, £250 as a percentage increase wouldn’t necessarily be that exorbitant.

I’ve been a LL (an accidental one I guess because it was due to relocating for work and being unable to sell.) I didn’t increase the rent for literally years; my tenant was an excellent and long term and I preferred to take way below what I could reasonably have charged because everything ran smoothly.

But it grinds my gears a bit when people assume that LL are all terrible people , and even worse, when people give really shockingly unhelpful ‘advice’ such as telling tenants to be obstructive and not leave until they’re forcibly evicted.

Ultimately, a LL can end a tenancy for whatever reason, provided they go by the book and do it all properly. It’s really not in the tenants interests to try to block that if they want to stand a chance of renting again in future

Sadly, @Caelano, some tenants don't have a choice but to wait until they're forcibly evicted. If they can't find alternative accommodation & have to look to the local authority for help, this is the advice they are given. I know because this is exactly what happened to us, earlier this year. Fortunately we were offered a place just prior to the eviction date (in a homeless shelter - they only have one family flat, & we were advised to take it when it became available or risk being literally on the street). We were then offered a HA house after several weeks. However we'd been applying for alternative accommodation for months, no-one would consider us because I'm disabled & can't work so we're on a lower income, also DH works part-time due to my illness & because he's still retraining for his current job. And we couldn't get HA housing until we were actually homeless.

It's not about being obstructive, it's about recognising that "making yourself voluntarily homeless" apparently means the council have no legal responsibility to assist people in need of assistance. So people often need to stay where they are until housing help is provided. Unfortunately that's one of the perils of being a LL. One of the perils of being a tenant is that your LL can evict you with little notice, for no particular reason, & for some people it is often literally impossible to secure another private let.

Sisyphus your situation sounds particularly difficult. I was referring more to some of the threads about tenancies where a few misinformed posters pile in automatically with a very clear anti LL agenda and ‘advise’ tenants that they don’t have to cooperate, they should just sit tight and make the LL go to court to obtain an eviction. Most tenants will need to rent somewhere else- they’re not going to stand a Hope in hell without a decent reference from their previous address, and even worse, CCJs against their name for the costs incurred by the LL in getting them out.

I rented before buying a home. My dc are all generation rent, so I’ve no axe to grind against tenants here. I feel every sympathy for people who are struggling but ultimately, the LL owns the property and as long as they are doing things by the book, fair enough if they want to end a tenancy

It's really shocking that landlords treat people in such a callous and cut-throat way.

It would be interesting to hear the views of such scumbags. Unfortunately only the decent ones seem to populate Mumsnet.

Is he 'evicting' them, or is he declining to renew a contract at a below market rate? Surely these two scenarios are different?

He must be evicting, because that is the only way of getting a tenant who doesn't want to leave out - not renewing a contract is not something that can happen, it just changes to a periodic tenancy if the tenants remain after any assured time. (outside of rare situations which can be ignored here I'm sure)

Join ACORN tenants' union. This is exactly the sort of thing they are fighting against.

They must have paid well below market rate. Landlords cannot just go and up rent unrealistically. If he did try though they should speak to shelter or CAB.

I couldn’t do this. We have tenants and I wouldn’t dream of reviewing the rent until such a time as they moved out and I needed to re-market the property. This is why landlords get a bad name.

In fact, we wiped £200 OFF their rent when Covid first kicked in and they were short one month due the gap in a furlough payment. It was a good will gesture based on the fact that they actually communicated their situation to us (and they said they would catch up the following month - we made the decision to tell them not to)

It is more important that they use that property as their home than we use it for financial gain. A tenants right to live in their home should trump the right to the landlord of financial gain (although in an ideal world, both would happen obviously)

Is he 'evicting' them, or is he declining to renew a contract at a below market rate? Surely these two scenarios are different?

I agree with @Whitney168 (derided as an obvious post).

I think it bears repeating . After all,- not all landlords are evil Rachman style Scrooge’s

@Totickleamockingbird

This should be criminal. Rent increase with inflation rate may be fine. But this greed is absolutely criminal. I am sick of the way we treat property and homes in this country. It’s as important to have a home as to have food and water and air.

Don’t be ridiculous!!! It’s shit but it’s the LL property so he can do whatever he wants with it and charge whatever he wants.

It’s like anything, if something is too expensive then it won’t sell. Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay and if he thinks he can get an extra £250 a month then it’s up to him

I do agree with what you've said @Caelano, in regards to some tenants who are needlessly obstructive, & tenants who are problematic by way of not paying or other issues. In those cases I'd sympathise with the LL 100%. I previously worked in property management & have seen some absolute horror stories of houses in truly appalling states after evictions had been completed. People can be truly vile sometimes & it makes me wonder why anyone would want to be a LL (and also, why any LL would take the risk of not taking out comprehensive insurance against delinquent tenants!)

It's one of the reasons we are so careful to be good tenants, I wouldn't want to get tarred with the brush that many in our situation do. We're poor but we take pride in our home. And it's why we are so happy to have a HA house now - they will not evict us as we are good tenants, & we can decorate, put shelves up, etc, when we can afford it.

As mumwon says sometimes what the landlord charges isn't up to them at all. We were told when we remortgaged our BTL that we had to increase the rent otherwise it didn't meet the lending criteria. We had been renting below market rate (apparently) to a nice single mum on benefits. She couldn't afford it and had to move, but we'd have had to sell if we hadn't met the mortgage criteria - in which case she'd probably still have had to move. The market is just utterly broken. She was a great tenant, told us if anything needed fixing, paid on time without fail. And of course all these tenants we've had since, paying market rates, have been a total nightmare.

This happened to us back in 2010... except he didn't even ask, he just evicted us saying he was going to sell, got some work done (new kitchen and paint, nothing that actually needed doing), and put it back up for rent 6 weeks later for £150 more a month. It was at a time when rental properties around here were very hard to find with a lot of competition, we were two weeks away from being homeless and ended up taking a place we didn't really like, for £100 a month anyway - we'd have paid extra if he'd just asked. Cunt.

*£100 more a month...

His house I'm afraid.

‘it makes me wonder why anyone would want to be a LL’

@SisyphusAndTheRockOfUntidiness there’s a huge divide between ‘career’ LL who’ve often got lucky years ago and have been able to amass large numbers of properties so that managing them becomes their entire income, and ‘accidental’ LL as I was, who really would rather not have to rent out their house but end up having to. In my case it was having to relocate for work, at a point where we couldn’t sell because of negative equity. I really didn’t want the hassle of renting out our house, and we certainly weren’t rolling in the money from the rent- it covered the mortgage and buildings insurance. LL insurance is often pretty hefty too. Meanwhile dh and I were having to start life over again in a rental property 150 miles away, and worrying every month that if our tenant didn’t pay her rent, we’d fall into mortgage arrears and still have to stump up the rent on where we living.

Some LL are arseholes. Some tenants are arseholes. But not all of us. I remember crying with relief when a few months in, we realised we’d struck lucky and had a good tenant who paid on time and wasn’t going to leave us with the sort of shit show I’ve seen happen to other LL

I’m a ll. I would never do this. Upgrading the roof is like upgrading windows. It just needs doing. I’ve had long term tenants in one property for years now and have decorated and changed carpets downstairs. Now am in the process of doing the same upstairs. I don’t intend to increase the rent right now. For me this is basic maintenance.

I normally upgrade in between tenancies and then rents go up. With this family, I have increased the rent a little over the years but tend to keep long term tenants rents lower as I want my tenants to stay. It’s costly to change tenancies and respectful, good payers are in much demand in my book.

OTOH I spent 18k upgrading a property a couple of years ago and had shitty tenants, who shut doors by kicking them. Minor negligent damage everywhere, Walked out of the property and left it filthy. Arseholes. I wish your neighbours ll gets tenants like this next time.

As for the rent rate, have they looked at what market rent is? They may be surprised. My long term tenants balked at a £50 increase a couple of years ago but were told to look at what was out there by the letting agent. Then they realised I was asking for about 12% lower than market rent (£100 less) and they couldn’t get an equivalent property in the town for that price. They then came straight back and agreed.

I didnt think you could put rent up by more than 10%? Are they paying 2500k a month rent?

Private landlords either own the house or a bonk does. It's not a public service.

Private renting is turning more into having a government seized asset every year. When my tenants leave I am 100% selling up and buying my own house ( I rent too). I have kept my rent increases too low and now I'm.worried if lost my job and needed to sell up, my tenants couldn't even afford a bed sit for what I charge rent on a three bed semi.

Private renting is turning more into having a government seized asset every year. When my tenants leave I am 100% selling up and buying my own house ( I rent too). I have kept my rent increases too low and now I'm.worried if lost my job and needed to sell up, my tenants couldn't even afford a bed sit for what I charge rent on a three bed semi.

FFS

This is my nightmare scenario. Where we live rents have gone up by £500 a month in 6 months, people have been moving here from
London as it’s more affordable and has pushed up rent across our town. We’ve lived here for 10yrs now and the LL has regularly upped the rent but has ensured he tries to remain ‘competitive’. If he evicted us we would have to move to another town.

They might be able to get some Universal Credit to allow for the rent increase. They could also try applying to the council for a discretionary housing payment.

It's a risky business if they can't find somewhere else, as if they leave before eviction (as in literally put onto the street) the council won't house them - but if they get evicted, they're unlikely to be able to pass a credit check for another property.