Rent increase by £300!!! What do I do? Is this normal? Please help!!!!

[Lele101]

Just got a text from landlord

“mortgage gone up and I’m paying 300 more for service charges and insurance to the council I have no choice but to raise rent by 300”

we live in ilford, Barkingside. It’s a 2 bedroom flat. Currently paying 1400, now he wants 1700.

last increase was 16 months ago. (From 1225 to 1400)

im shocked. Is this normal?? Please advice. I don’t know what to do.

It's more complicated than "theft is theft" anyway. Landlords are hoarding a vital but limited resource. If those of us who are forced to rent choose to upset the landlords' privileged position in this unfair transaction as much as we're able to now and then, it's fair game.

You absolutely cannot be penalized by refusing to be extorted... that would also be illegal discrimination.

She only has to pay what she was contracted to pay, anything else the LANDLORD needs permission to do... its not on her at all.

What planet do you live on where tenants are held responsible for the LL not following the laws set out to protect tenants?

The landlord is an eejit who doesn't know what he's doing!
You might be able to work that to your advantage op?
Being a landlord is an investment activity, the main financial benefits is on the appreciation of your asset. He clearly doesn't understand this and he is over leveraged such that his business model is no longer viable.

NIC is paid on profits by individuals running a business, not just on their staff wages. But it's not paid on profits made by a landlord renting out property.

Buying a house is the very definition of 'operating at a loss' until the house is paid off.

If a LL cannot afford to repay the bank for the term of the mortgage they have no business buying the house in the first place.

A tenant is a nice bonus along the way, not something to be relied upon as the sole payer of the LLs debt.

A tenant is a nice bonus along the way, not something to be relied upon as the sole payer of the LLs debt
@Dutch1e 👏
Landlording is an investment activity, in the same way that investing in the stock market is an investment activity.
If someone borrowed money to buy stocks and shares and then started crying when the interest rate went up (wiping out the profit from the appreciation of the stocks and shares) then you would think they were an overleveraged twit.

Errmm.... they are supplying housing. That's a pretty important service. Do you want them to not supply housing? Because where that's happening (Scotland) tenants are really struggling with lack of supply and massive numbers of people bidding on every property. That forces rents up. It doesn't help the poorer as you call them (although I'd question that as many tenants are choosing to rent rather than forced to rent for a myriad of reasons)

The problem with your way of thinking is you haven't factored in mobility of capital. Or the fact that if the variables in any situation are changed behaviour will be changed. As evidenced by the tax the rich bastards policy of whacking up stamp duty at the upper end of the market. Net result, stamp duty revenues fell so the Treasury and by default the public purse was worse off. It was a popular policy despite this.

My 'poor' tenant approached 'rich' me and asked to buy the property. On doing the math he realised just how much more he'd pay in mortgage and service charge than he would in rent and quickly retracted the offer. Make of that what you will. For the record I'd have bitten his hand off.

They are all competitive the food prices.

£1400 may actually be still around market value. If there are plenty for rent at £1600, then it’s not far off.

dont forget rental agencies- like house sales- often advertise at a higher price. Often they over estimate because the LL will go for letting agent who says they can get the most. There’s also some room for negotiation with tenants. It easier to come down in price than up.

I get that the market is hot right now and people might be paying full whack, but he may end up with property staying empty for a while

I think I have no choice

i’m 64 on low income (cleaner).

there’s also another huge problem:

My daughter recently became disabled and lost her job. (Was diagnosed with rare condition). Cannot work at all. We are in the process of applying for PiP but we heard horror stories of rejection etc. having to go tribunal and the long waiting times fighting to prove etc especially if the person is young and has an invisible disability.

my ex husband who lives with us is a disabled pensioner.

no one will rent to us…

I’m worried sick.

Have you spoken to Shelter yet, @Lele101 ?

I'm not surprised you are worried sick but you do have a choice as per lots of advice on this thread. You do not have to pay the increased rent.
Has your ex, pensioner husband applied for council housing? Does he contribute or is he also on a very low income? If he is on pension credits, he can claim housing benefit and pay that to you off record. But do negotiate with your LL or tell him that you can't afford the increase and see what he says. Alternatively, you could look a bit further afield in your area as some properties may be a bit cheaper.

Errmm.... they are supplying housing. That's a pretty important service. Do you want them to not supply housing?

They're not supplying housing. They're buying up a limited resource and then leasing it back on the market at a premium. If all the BTL landlords actually invested in building houses (which we desperately need) then we'd be in a very different situation.

OK, there’s two things to understand here. One is the legal position (what can the landlord do by law) and then negotiating tactics.

Without seeing your tenancy agreement it’s impossible to know for sure, but chances are the landlord is in a position to increase your rent and there is no legal limit on the rent he can ask for. All this needs to be done in the correct way of course.

If you think the rent is excessive compared to other similar flats in your area you can try to challenge this by applying to a rent tribunal. This would certainly be worth considering if you thought this was the case but it sounds like you might have been paying a comparatively low rent for the area, in which case the tribunal wouldn’t get you area if the landlord is just being the rent into line with the market rent in the area.

You might want to consider informal negotiation with your landlord. Two things to bear in mind here (which pull in opposing directions).

1. It costs landlords to evict a tenant and find a new one, and it is not without risk. If you are a good reliable tenant then he might well want to keep you and be willing to consider a lower increase.

2. From this summer, new laws will be coming into force which make it much harder to evict tenants. It is possible the landlord is aware of this so he may be trying to raise the rent now, and if you complain about it, serve notice.

So I think you’ve got two choices.

First one is to negotiate now and see if the landlord will agree a lower increase, but risk the landlord getting cold feet about you and serving you a s21 notice.

Second one is to keep quiet. Try to keep up with the rent payments in the short term and look for a new place to live, in the knowledge that From summer, the landlord will have to wait for you to get significantly behind on the rent before they can serve you notice (unless such as they want to sell the house or move into it themselves, But even then they will have to give you more notice than they do now).

Depending on the relationship you’ve got with your landlord, personally, I think it is worth a gentle negotiation: You don’t want to leave him, thinking that there’s no way you can afford the extra £300, because otherwise he might decide to try to find someone who can.

I just read your update. Do you receive housing benefit or the housing element of UC?

So why is there a problem in areas where LLs are pulling out of the market then? Reality is the market needs LLs. If that is made a really unattractive investment option there won't be any.

It's market forces and economics. Not rocket science.

However none of this debate helps OP.

OP, you are in a good position in that you live there, you pay the rent, don't trash the place or otherwise cause a nuisance. The LL will want to keep you. If you move out he will likely have to fund a void period, pay for redecoration and refurbishment (no shade to you, but between lets properties need work), he will incur agents fees for the inventory, and paperwork. It will be very expensive for him. He knows this. Negotiate. Make a counter offer of what you can afford.

Despite what people will tell you on here it isn't the smartest move to not pay and wait for eviction. Particularly not if you want to rent elsewhere. You won't get a LL reference, and without one you will be bottom of the list for a new place.

Good luck. The economy sucks right now for everyone. Thank you Covid. Shut the economy down for months on end and boom watch the result.

The op clearly needs to rent somewhere and the reduction of supply is making it harder

Speak to Shelter / CAB and to your local council. You are vulnerable and at potential risk of homelessness.

As an aside get help with the PIP form too. I have a visually impaired family member and the RNIB listed a whole load of relevant issues on their website that would never have occurred to me but were problems the person faced when I checked with them.

There are people that will
My dad is in rented, he's on a pension with no other income. He stayed there after my mum died, landlord very happy and hasn't changed the rent

Not every landlord is unscrupulous. I rent out a number of houses to long-term tenants (between 9 - 17 years) at a discount of 30% of the local market rent. I know my tenants personally, they are good to me and I'm good to them. I could make more but I don't need to. Believe it or not, there are quite a number of landlords like me (unprofessional ones some might say), but the houses never come to the rental market because the tenants never leave.

People always suggest phoning Shelter but you generally can’t get through on the phone unless you’re at immediate risk of homelessness (they do have webchat though).

There are other charities you can try: local CAB can help with everything. Is there a charity for the rare condition your daughter has, they may be able you on applying for PIP. As you are older Independent Age offers housing and welfare advice and are so much easier to get through to than Shelter

Once again, no, they are dropping out in their droves. And it’s not reduced house pricing, all that’s happened is rents are driven up due to lack of supply.

you can’t seriously think now they are stopped all renters can magic up 50 or a hundred grand for a deposit and buy?

these sort pf answers are just bemusing.

Good God you twerp. Landlords do hold all the power. The only reason you don't have ccjs, and no credit rating is out of the goodness of the ex landlords heart. You have made situation worse for other tenants, acted illegally and are giving the same deranged advice now to others. Grow the fuck up.

Is there any clause in your tenancy agreement that states when they can increase rent, and by how much %?
For example, mine states once a year and max 5%. They once tried to increase it by more than that and I pushed back so they now increase by 5% each year but that's in the terms so legally all they can get away with.
Read your tenancy agreement thoroughly before you respond or agree to anything.

Also, have you checked if you will be eligible to any Universal Credit to help with the additional rent costs, should there be no clause in your tenancy agreement limiting how much they can increase it by? Check on the benefits calculator if you're eligible to help with the higher rent amount