To query Housing Association rent increase

[Sunsetboater]

Bear with me here as I'm not a statistician and I'm hoping there are some solicitors on here that could let me know if I ABU..
I was not surprised to receive a rent increase notice but shocked by how much - see attached letter received yesterday, +14.3% from £338.55 to £385.51 pcm, nearly £50 pcm. I realise it's not as huge as some have been saying theirs has increased by but still. 😩
I've calmed down a little now and filed it away but I am contemplating contacting the HA to query it.
So, doing a little research re the RPI (Retail Price Index) figures they're basing the increase on, I found this article under gov.uk site (screenshot attached) that the HAs should now be basing their rent increase on CPI (Consumer Price Index) and not RPI. And, digging a little further... it would appear CPI is less than RPI... Therefore, they're using the wrong Index. I can't seem to get a definitive figure on the actual RPI or CPI for 04/2024 but but all the ones I keep seeing on different Solicitors webpages are a lot less than the 14.3% that my HA are quoting in their letter.
Would you query this with the HA or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Are housing association has just put the rent up - for a tiny two bed flat we are now paying £819 per month

£500 PCM?????!!!!!!!🤢

Yep.
Had lived there since 2016 and he had put the rent up three times in those years.

Last year's one with the £500 was ridiculous. We said to him how can he justify it but he quoted cost of living etc. We implored him to not raise it so high, that we couldn't possibly cover that increase, we work already but claim UC for extra help, their attitude was they couldn't help because the LHA rate was already applied. We tried to look at where we could make savings but apart from not buying food for ourselves we couldn't manage it. We said to him that we had not had one penny spent by him since we moved in, apart from the annual gas check.

He didn't want to know and said if we didn't pay up he would begin proceedings. So we were damned whatever we did because the council class is now as intentional homelessness but would've done the same if we didn't pay and got into arrears. They won't help at all. Not even temporary accommodation.

It's disgusting.

The rent increase is right if your lease states it will increase annually by RPI preceding Feb (here Feb 2023) + 0.5%
RPI for Feb 23 was 13.8%
Add 0.5% =14.3%

If it is a flat then for technical legal reasons they cannot even cap the increase, whereas arguably they could for houses but cannot be compelled to.

Some registered provider share owner landlords are capping houses held on shared ownership leases at the 7.7% required for social/affordable lets.

It's so crappie, ours went up last April by £50 and again this April by another £50. I'm extremely lucky our rent is less then the private rental market for what I have, but it's still difficult with the increases.

@WillimNot I am so sorry. You are correct, there is only one word for that type of behaviour. Disgusting!

Has your landlord relet the property at the higher rent? This makes me so angry. If only our government had the backbone to make the industry build affordable houses or sort out the amount private landlords are allowed to increase rent to sitting tenants.

Everyone deserves a decent affordable home.

This is what I gleaned had happened with regards to the significance of the 'social housing' rents being linked to the RPI rather than CPI. I have called the HA this morning to ask if they were aware of any plans to retrospectively amend all tenants accounts prior to October 2023 - I knew they wouldn't be able to answer as these decisions are made from Central Government. I guess for those of us that are going to be subject to this higher increase going forward the only recourse would perhaps be to lobby government via petitions etc?

I guess for those of us that are going to be subject to this higher increase going forward the only recourse would perhaps be to lobby government via petitions etc?

1 in 5 Tory MPs are landlords, you'll be ignored.

Mine has gone from 775 to 1200! And that is still below current market rate (1400). Small 2 bed terrace. I currently spend 70% of my income on rent.
I would be over the bloody moon with some of these rents, you couldn't even get a room in a flat round here for less than 700 (not London or SE, Scotland actually).
Honestly OP count yourself extremely lucky to have a housing association property, that is a very low rent for the UK

My rent has gone up £50 pcm too. Pussed off about it because my landlord ( HA) are shit. Disrepair etc but that's going through courts.
.to be honest I wanna refuse paying anything more but I jave kids to think about so I supposeni have to start paying

That is cheap. We'll to me it cheap. I'm in a 2 bed shitty tiny flat with 4 children and my rent is £1350pm but going up to £1400 in April

What is the breakdown of your rent vs service charge currently?

I'm referring to Housing Associations for affordable Social Housing rather than Private Landlords.
I looked at renting privately 2 years ago when my personal circumstances changed and I was sofa surfing (thanks to my brother) for a few months. At that time private rent rates were astronomical and I could forsee it only getting worse. I was pulling my hair out with how to resolve my potential being homeless when a local new housing development was being built and I learned about Shared Ownership - at that time it was the answer to my prayers. I'm sure I'll be ok, certainly not as badly off as some poor folks on here are kindly sharing.
On a plus note, I have contacted BT this morning as my 2 year Broadband contract is coming to an end - they have reduced my monthly subscription from £45 to £29.99 😏.

He listed it for a slightly higher price than he wanted from us at £1650pcm. He wanted us to pay £1550.
It remained on the market from September until December until he got £1300 instead.

From what I hear from my old neighbour the new tenant is vile, he gets constant complaints about them. Meanwhile we have to stay with family because we cannot afford anywhere and we've had some turn us down because we can't have him as a reference. He originally said we could then when we gave him the letting agent told us he said we moved out after refusing to pay a reasonable rent increase which gave red flags to them.

He has well and truly screwed us until at least June when our son has finished his exams. No idea where we will end up then but we can't afford anywhere in this town nor several towns over in each direction.

Yeah but that wasn't the OP question? they didn't ask what other people were paying, they didn't ask for woe me stories, you think you got it bad, look at me....

Mine went up by £120 monthly last year and will increase by approximately £30 monthly this year. That’s around 24% in 24% in 2 years, while my earnings barely budged.

I work in Welfare as well and some of my residents’ private rent increases make me want to weep with them.

Times are increasingly hard.

Some social landlords/councils are looking at amending leases to change from RPI to CPI but this isn't easy if the development is flats because of technical reasons relating to needing 100% agreement or at least 75% of parties (landlord is also counted as a party) agreeing before an application can be made to the tribunal for variation.

Much easier for deed of variation where it is house as the landlord and lessee (tenant) can just agree.

@Boomboomboomboom Thank you for the (layman's terms) clarification. You see, I just knew someone on here would have this information and knowledge to explain it clearly 😘. Don't you just love MN!

My ex landlord wanted to increase our rent from £1312 to £1650

@toomuchfaff it's not a woe story it's reality. Moaning about paying a couple of hundred quid a month. When most are paying that weekly. people need to know where their bread is buttered when it comes to social housing.

This.

I'm sorry. Shared owners are being screwed at the moment. It's designed for those on low incomes but is currently proportionate to incomes the very least affordable housing tenure.

Mine went up by 9.4%. My mortgage went up just before Christmas by 2.5% . Put together I can no longer afford it and am really worried for the future. It's no longer affordable housing.

Council tax will go up, my maintenance fees are going up and they want to do major roof works.

I'm actually so worried right now.

As a shared ownership lease the rules on rent increase are not the same as for true social housing. What those rules are I don't know but I wouldn't have thought the letter you've got is wrong. I work for a HA, although not directly with tenants, and believe me when I said that we don't want to get these sort of things wrong.

My pleasure! I've been dealing with lots of issues like this for various rps/councils for the last few months as its coming up to rent increase time on 1st April