Landlord request feels unfair

[Uberbeeboo]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice about our rights as tenants. We have lived in our rental property for coming up to 5 years and were made aware in March our landlord wanted to sell when our tenancy ended on 31st august 2024.

We therefore purchased a new build property which we believed would have been built by now, however we now have been given the completion date of 30th September 2024.

Today we asked the estate agent who manages our property if we can stay until our new property is ready to move into and they have responded with an ultimatum saying we can stay, but there will be a £400 increase of the rent per month starting next week when the rent is due.

The rental house is not sold and we've only done 2 viewings since April. We've been good tenants and were disappointed we had to move anyway. We really can't afford an extra £400 next week, so I was hoping if someone would kindly give me a little guidance with this please?

That’s interesting, because I agreed with you until the last sentence. The idea that someone can just hike ops rent by £400 with no notice, makes me glad I don’t have to deal with unscrupulous landlords. Op seems to have been an ideal tenant and the correct notice to increase does not seem to have been given - to me that’s shows a lack of integrity on the landlords side.

No her tenancy does not end on the 31st! Please can we put this to bed? Section 21 notice does not end a tenancy.

No she wasn't due to be out by the 31st and the landlord didn't have to agree to anything. At the end of the notice period the tenant holds the cards and the landlord is not owed anything extra if they didn't serve the correct notice of a rent increase!

@Bitchette of course the houses need to be paid for but if you're going to arbitrarily raise rent by amounts significantly higher than inflation then you need to do it by the book and give people sufficient notice.

But a tenancy agreement doesn't mean the tenant has to vacate at the end of it. The law is clear about that. There is no lack of integrity in legally occupying a property you're entitled to live in!

The ‘ideal tenant’ would leave when they had agreed to leave so that the landlord can sell the house.

Sitting tenants will put off many potential buyers.

They will, but we are talking 2 weeks here, with legitimate reason. A reasonable landlord would see that the end was in sight and work with the tenant (to ensure they could still do viewings and maintain a good working relationship).

For 2 weeks anyone interested in the house will wait and see, or put a conditional offer in of the tenants being out by October.

Baglady44 I can assure you this is not something we wanted to happen nor was it avoidable. I have made sure I informed the estate agent the day I found out about the delay myself and respectfully requested support around this. His response was to demand extra money without issuing legal notice. I doubt the landlord has any idea what is going on and his interests aren't being protected.

If they are not raising the rent, that would be an illegal fee I believe.

If they are proposing a rent increase outside of the s13 notice, the tenant can choose to accept or not. They are choosing not.

The only one acting entitled is the agent. The OP is following the rules. The landlord agreed to those rules the moment he agreed to the tenancy. Wether you personally agree with the rules is somewhat irrelevant.

@Bitchette they have said the rent will increase by £400 from 1st September. Compensation has not been mentioned. If it is compensation he wants then he should be clear about that and about why he needs that extra amount.

You're just being ridiculous now. Projecting all of these hypothetical scenarios.

Completely irrelevant even if it was the case. The landlord's personal housing circumstances have nothing to do with his property letting business.

As long as the tenant is following the due legal process, then they are following the agreement BOTH parties agreed to at the start of the tenancy.

It is now nearly 1000 in the morning, have you contacted the landlord directly? Stop thinking about everything you have and have not done over 5 years, deal with the now.

Speak to the landlord, a few minutes conversation may solve your problems, or worse case confirm the LL did in fact advise the agent to send the comments.

If the former great, all sorted, if the latter then you have concrete information and you can then put in place what you plan to do.

It seems unlikely that the landlord is moving in, given the for sale sign is still up.

But anyway, wild speculation about motive is irrelevant to laws governing tenancies.

I would forward the agent's email to the landlord and explain that you only need the house for a few extra days.

Don't focus on the selling aspect - like many a landlord, they'll pretend to want to sell because that's the easiest way to issue a S21. Then take it off the market the moment you leave, and instead rent it out again at a much higher price. Bet it'll be on Rightmove for £1200 pm within days after you moving out.

Not unless they are in Scotland - in which case it's not a s21 but a different process entirely.

As long as they are not discriminating against a protected characteristic, they can use a s21 for any reason at all - or indeed no reason at all. It's irrelevant to the possession claim.

But equally, what the landlord is doing with the house once the tenancy has been legally ended is of no concern to the tenant either.

Op to be clear. You say the tenancy ends 19th sept. Are you sure, if so you are paying till the 19th sept?

The tenancy doesn't end then. She said that's when the S21 notice expires.

I was just wondering if there was agreement in relation to pro-rata'd rent up to that date, however. Because if there's been no mention of it, and they let OP pay for a month on 1 Sept, that would be a sign they're letting her stay on until the end of the month (even if it's accidental on behalf of the agent!).

Wrong. Only if she didn’t pay rent (and not the increased amount) can it have an effect on credit rating.

You're a landlord and you don't think a tenant can just stay 10 days after the s21 notice expires? Really?