To think rent increases “because of inflation” are immoral when many landlords own outright?

[RentRealityCheck]

I keep seeing rent hikes justified with “inflation”, even where the landlord has no mortgage and their costs haven’t meaningfully increased. At that point it feels like pure profit-taking, passed directly onto tenants who already have no leverage and with huge knock-on effects for stability, mental health, family life and society more broadly.

AIBU to think this isn’t just market forces but greed and that pretending otherwise ignores the damage being done?

How do you know who has a mortgage and who doesn’t?

You’re right that (in an ideal world) rent shouldn’t be raised by/affect owners who own outright, but it’s unenforceable because you can’t index link price rises to the owners’ mortgages, only the market rates.

They may not have a mortgage, but presumably they have the same living expenses as everyone else and will need their income to rise accordingly?

Why stop there? Why not make landlords who own their properties outright give people free rent?

You don't know if they have a mortgage or not, everything else goes up maintenance, call out charges for repairs, insurances, agency fees etc. Also they are in it as a business, it's like saying Doris doesn't deserve a pay rise because she hasn't got a mortgage, ignoring the fact that all of her other life costs have gone up

They still have to pay for ever increasing repair costs

In most cases, tenants obviously don’t know the details of a landlord’s finances. I’m not claiming tenants can reliably identify who does or doesn’t have a mortgage. My point is more about the justification itself - when rent increases are framed as unavoidable “inflationary pressures”, that explanation doesn’t always hold in situations where the landlord’s actual costs haven’t risen in line with the rent.

Even where costs have increased, the question for me is whether passing those increases straight onto tenants -who can’t easily absorb them, is ethically different from other forms of price-setting, given the power imbalance and the essential nature of housing. It’s more about whether “inflation” is sometimes used as a catch-all excuse for rent rises that go beyond cost recovery.

OP, what about the maintenance of a property? Repairs? Servicing and certification? Insurance? Do you think costs remain the same every year

Inflation doesn’t affect mortgages, that’s interest rates obviously. Having let out our family home when we were relocated with work, you aren’t immune to inflation as you have to get tradesmen in for everything and their bills go up with inflation. That’s the point.

It’s not just mortgage though, my insurance has gone up (I’m not a landlord) and the annual checks have also gone up. Plus repairs are now really expensive compared to a couple of years ago.

Yes, landlords have living costs like anyone else. I think where I draw the distinction is that increases in personal living expenses aren’t usually treated as a justification to raise prices in most other contexts. For example, an employer doesn’t increase someone’s salary by directly increasing the price paid by the same individual for an essential good.

My discomfort is with housing being treated as a vehicle for maintaining or improving someone else’s standard of living, rather than as an essential service where price rises are more closely tied to genuine cost increases related to providing the housing itself. I get that this is how the market currently works. I’m questioning whether it should, giveb the power imbalance and lack of alternatives for tenants.

Is this not how they make their living? Do wages not go up every year? Along with maintenance, repair costs, insurance, tenants that don't pay for months and end up being evicted.

If they raise rent astronomically then that is morally wrong and is a different story

OP do you think these people just buy a house outright for no return just to help out tenants?
Do you think they don't put money aside for certification / repairs / agency fees/ tax etc?

That’s not what I’m arguing for. I’m not suggesting free rent or that landlords shouldn’t make a return. I’m questioning whether “inflation” is always an honest or appropriate justification for rent rises, particularly when those rises go well beyond increases in the costs of providing the housing.

There’s a difference between earning income from an asset and using an essential good to automatically protect or increase personal living standards, regardless of tenants’ ability to absorb the increase. My point is about proportionality and ethics, not abolishing rent.

It is a money making scheme. It's an investment, or for some their actual job. If they can get more income on the value of their investment elsewhere, without the risk and hassle of being a landlord, that's what they'll do.

I think the OP does have a point , and is sadly going to be flamed by the "bricks and mortar are the best investment" types on Mumsnet.

It is unbelievably tragic that in the UK, so many people turn first to landlordism as an investment strategy or business approach, instead of investing in the stock market, or better yet starting a business that actually employs people.

Well both of those latter options require a healthy risk appetite, a bit of intelligence and get-up-and-go, so I realise now why this isn't the case.

Instead, folk in the UK love the idea of having a little "nest egg" that they can continue to maximise profits from by upping the rent and causing others to struggle, but hey "I have to make money too" etc.

As a person who owns their property outright but isn't a landlord as I have other investment interests and businesses that do not require others to pay half their salary or more to me, I really can't stand the landlord-as-a-business aspiration and mentality in the UK.

And yeah I get it, what happens to renters if all the landlords sell up etc. It's always the argument wheeled out at this point, drowning out any other nuance.

I’m not suggesting they stay static year to year. My point is that increases in maintenance, servicing, insurance, etc. are usually incremental and irregular, whereas rent rises are often annual, significant and framed as inevitable, regardless of whether those specific costs have actually risen in proportion.

What I’m questioning is the assumption that any increase in landlord-side costs automatically justifies passing the full amount (or more) onto tenants every year, especially when housing is an essential and tenants have very limited ability to absorb or avoid those increases. So yes, costs do change. I’m asking whether the way those changes are translated into rent rises is always proportionate or ethically neutral.

Dont be silly. There is an obvious middle ground of rent controls.

Well BlackRock, Lloyds Bank, and overseas landlords are operating in Wales. As companies they have shareholders who expect a good return. I don't see any solution to that.

Our council handed over their portfolio to a private company years ago. The rents are now similar to private rental. But they do the maintenance promptly

If not happy with the increase I would move to a more suitable place as soon as your tenancy ends. Let someone else deal with an unrealistic price increase.

I agree with your last point. Yes, for many landlords this is their income and yes, some costs rise and there are genuine risks involved. I’m not denying that or arguing landlords shouldn’t make a living.

Where I’m uncomfortable is when rent rises are framed as automatically justified every year in the same way wages might be, despite the fact that tenants’ wages often don’t keep pace and housing isn’t a discretionary product people can opt out of.
Moderate, cost-linked increases are one thing; treating housing as a guaranteed mechanism for income growth regardless of tenant affordability is another. I think we’re probably closer in view than it might seem.

Why do you think that landlords shouldn't charge a market rent. It's irrelevant whether they have a mortgage or not, their living costs have gone up too. Repair costs have increased and if they use an agent staffing costs have increased.

Landlords are running a business, they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and neither should they.

I'm not a landlord but the demonisation of landlords and people like the OP saying tenants good, landlords bad is ridiculous. Why shouldn't they increase the rents, just as every other business is increasing their prices?

So should we have 2 tier rates? One for those with a mortgage and one for those without?

I wouldn’t say my tenants have “very limited ability to absorb rent increase”. They’ve lived there since for 7 years paying what is now a couple of hundred quid below market value. Presumably they have been able to save up a decent amount of savings in that time given they work and have not had to pay for any housing repairs / upkeep costs themselves in the last 7 years.

And yeah I get it, what happens to renters if all the landlords sell up etc. It's always the argument wheeled out at this point, drowning out any other nuance.

What happens is the the laws of supply and demand kick in, and the rents hike up even further. But you are right of course That is just a silly argument that should just be ignored...