Rent

[lilyj13]

I can't believe my landlord in the middle of lockdown has decided go out my rent up to £1600 and tbh it's a very cold shitty bungalow they don't wish to spend any money on! It's freezing the doors are unless and they are partnered so she buys the property and he does it up very cheaply and rents it out so expensive, because we live near Heathrow they think that they can get away with it! I was fuming specially through this pandemic I think is a joke. The kitchen is terrible and I've made the house what it is now. It's selfish and just money hungry!
Every time there is a problem she doesn't care and blames that the last tenant didn't moan as much but the last tenants were polish and had 7 of them living in the house and they were illegal,
I've had to put a new fire alarm in because it wasn't working
She txt me saying she only just read her email saying that the carbon monoxide alarm needs replacing 7 months ago later.
It's terrible I'm constantly paying out so much money for the heating as there is no stuff in the walls to kept us warm just bricks! We are currently paying £1500 but a Jump to an extra 100 is a joke

Are you in a position to move? That sounds terrible!

I think that you can choose to accept rent increase or choose to move out without any penalty because that’s a change to the tenancy agreement. We had to do that once and the LL ended up having to accept less rent from the tenants after us after it sat on the market for a few months.

I could move yes but I work from home as a childminder so it's very difficult, we are currently saving for a mortgage as well so I'm trying my best to just carry on till I can get my own house wish I'm dying for but ovs with all this going on it's been extremely difficult.
I have been looking around but nothing is a available at the min local to my daughters school and my parents who I work for

Find out what your EPC is. If your Landlord's certificate is out of date, or not up to scratch, I definitely wouldn't accept a rent increase (I am a Landlord)

By law your Energy Performance Certificate (how much your home retains heat/uses energy) should be minimum E.

Since 1 April 2020, landlords can no longer let or continue to let properties covered by the MEES Regulations if they have an EPC rating below E, unless they have a valid exemption in place.

You can check your EPC online here...
find-energy-certificate.digital.communities.gov.uk/find-a-certificate/search-by-postcode?lang=/&property_type=domestic

Just move out OP. Contact all local letting agents and tell them what you need. Many lets never make it to the website. Be proactive and phone once a week. Presumably your daughter won't lose her school place if you move out of the catchment area now?
By the way, I don't think it's the landlord's responsibility to give carbon monoxide alarms. They are about £5- £8 and are not installed. They just sit on the boiler/gas fitment/fireplace with around a 2 year life. Expiry written on.

Of course it's the landlords responsibility to have a carbon monoxide in a house as it's their boiler they get checked and installed! Ovs I've bought one as well.

Also it's not as simple to just move out with commitments and with what's going on at the min as as I've said I have my own business at the home!

Thank you I will check energy and certificates and get back to you as very helpful you are a landlord

Is your boiler gas fired? If so he should get a gas safety certificate each year. Does he?

Someone is coming around this week for that

@Didyousaysomethingdarling I've sent you some pics please let me know what you think

@lilyj13
I would get the post taken down with your address on

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/housing/renting-privately/during-your-tenancy/challenging-a-rent-increase/
See the link above

A landlord only needs a new EPC when they relet a property, or if the property didn’t reach a grade E by April 2020 and they needed to demonstrate they’d taken steps to improve this. Your property shows as a grade D, so it meets acceptable standards.

When was your last rent increase and how much would it cost you to rent a similar property in the area? Whilst it might seem unfair to have a rent increase during a pandemic, it might not necessarily be unjustified if you’ve been paying below market rate until now. All you can do is say you’ll need to move if they do increase it, and this might make them consider whether this is likely to result in a long void period.

@Sunflowergirl1 how do I delete it

@ComtesseDeSpair I have been looking and not much around.
I've lived here for 3 years and everything has been a problem, electrics we nearly had a fire in one of the plugs as they all had cracks in them. How cold the house is as you can see nothing in walls apart from upstairs, supposed to be a 3 bed 1 downstairs but as it's that cold can't used the tiny bedroom downstairs. Everything is broken and we have spent lots to fix it, we had problems with the boiler so many times. It's not so much that it's gone up we can afford it but at the same time with how much problems we have had with it rWally is a piss take.
I will be continue looking around but was hoping to get a mortgage next year sometime unless banks still jot lending. I just think some landlords are just money hungry and really do take the mick

...and your landlord will continue to take the mick as long as you keep paying. Shitholes rented out by crooks never get better.

there is only one solution and you should have taken it two years, six months ago. Take it now and move on. Your landlord is playing on your lack of knowledge of the system - no gas cert, probably a too-low EPC, dangerous electrics (illegal even before the new regs), and probably all the other stuff.

you don't have to accept the rent increase. All she can do is start the eviction process. It will fail because there's so much documentation missing. Even if that wasn't the case, the backlog is now over a year and growing.

getting a relatively short let from a proper landlord will be challenging due to all the new rules, but why stay in this dump longer than you need? Moving is never easy, but NOTHING is going to change. There is no enforcement of property standards, even though there should be.

BTW CO alarms are not mandatory for landlords to provide unless there is a solid fuel appliance. They are good practice but that's not your landlord. Where are the smoke alarms? Deposit protection? How to rent guide? etc etc etc...

@lilyj13

Of course it's the landlords responsibility to have a carbon monoxide in a house as it's their boiler they get checked and installed! Ovs I've bought one as well.

Also it's not as simple to just move out with commitments and with what's going on at the min as as I've said I have my own business at the home!

Thank you I will check energy and certificates and get back to you as very helpful you are a landlord

The landlord only has to make sure there’s a functioning CO monitor on the first day; thereafter it’s the tenant’s responsibility.

Has she protected your deposit by putting it in a government backed scheme? Has she served you the info on where the deposit is kept? If she hasn’t, you have her over a barrel- you can ask for multiples of your deposit back when you move out.

In a free market they set the price and you decide if you are willing to pay, if you are not then you negotiate or walk away and the market sets the price.

In this instance however your costs of moving may outweigh £1200 extra a year in rent so for you a worthwhile price including the benefit of not moving may be higher than for someone mobile, especially if you intend to buy soon and avoid a set of moving expenses which may well exceed a years additional rent.

You can actually go to a tribunal if you think your rent is not in keeping with local market conditions. Just not many people realise that

@lilyj13 - actually if you read the government website, landlords only have to put a carbon monoxide detector into a room used as living accommodation that has a solid fuel appliance at the start of the tenancy. Landlords are 'encouraged' to use them elsewhere if appropriate.

Link from .gov.uk website.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/smoke-and-carbon-monoxide-alarms-explanatory-booklet-for-landlords/the-smoke-and-carbon-monoxide-alarm-england-regulations-2015-qa-booklet-for-the-private-rented-sector-landlords-and-tenants#:~:text=The%20regulations%20require%20private%20rented,1%20October%202015%2C%20to%20have%3A&text=a%20carbon%20monoxide%20alarm%20in%20any%20room%20used%20as%20living,start%20of%20each%20new%20tenancy.

Wow a lot of information, thank you,

Our contract as now ended it's currently a rolling contract.
April she said she would put his up.
When she wrote the Email I was shocked because it never asked our circumstances in work as people are getting furloughed abs made redundant we are lucky we haven't but she didn't even ask our situation!
As for the smoke alarm it wasn't even working when I moved in, I was silly really I looked at the house and liked it as it's very nice but when you move in and then realise why they couldn't sell it in the first place well now I know why.
It's not with an estate agent which gives you an idea what they are like I suppose I'm not sure. As for the carbon monoxide I didn't know this but that's a small thing as I replaced one anyway.
Everytime I ring my landlord he doesn't answer as I've said these are partners she buys he does it up very cheap even though he's not qualified at all!

I'm not a pro in all this because I don't own a house which hopefully next year I will buy.

Like I said I wouldn't care paying £1600 I mean a hell of a lot of money to rent a house but it's south it's always Going to be expensive but it's the fact we have had so many problems and Doing it in the middle of a lockdown.

You know electricians come over and are shocked so many people who have come over to fix things are either related or telling how bad this house is

This so the house when we moved in and didn't realise how bad it was.
She now has replaced the windows which took forever and the bath Panay was done again by the landlord who messed it up still

It's bad