Landlord wants to double our rent

[Vegetablespringrolls]

It's still within the LHA. Would we still get the rent paid by universal credit?

We live in a house owned by a charity. We pay a very low rent currently as we get a discount on the rent for working part time for the charity. The head of the charity has said that our rent is no longer covering their expenses and they have to increase the rent.

The charity could decide to sell if they are making a loss, and the OP forced to move out, so some caution is required when you say t'hey can't get you out' as it's not strictly true.

Are they sacking you from your work for the charity? Does your work for the charity require you to live in that specific place in order to be able to do the work? What they are allowed to do does depend on the answers to this.

If an employer requires an employee to live in a particular place in order to do the work then they cannot generally charge market rent for the accommodation. They still have to pay minimum wage and can only deduct a maximum of £77.70 per week from minimum wage pay to account for accommodation costs. So they can only charge you more than £77.70 if your hours and pay are high enough that you are still getting at least minimum wage after deducting the difference between their rent and £77.70pw.

It's different if your employment isn't directly linked to living there and they could just as easily rent out the accommodation to a random member of the public and employ someone to do the work who lives elsewhere.

Since the contract says 5% per year max, thats where you start. With a photo of that, emailed to them.

Thankyou. Rent is going from £200 a month to £400 a month. Technically you can do the job without living in the house but it's awkward, especially in the winter. The house is next door to the building they use for the charity so part of our job is to clean, open up when people hire the hall, turn heating on and off etc. It's a lot easier to do the job when based on site. We do admin and social media as well but we could do that anywhere.

My main concern is that they will put the rent up and then UC will faff around for ages before agreeing to pay, causing me a whole load of admin and several months of having to make up the difference between the old rent amount and the new one.

For the sake of £400 a month that on the grand scale is peanuts. Not really sure what the issue is i thought you meant going from £600 to £1,200 or something.

Rent is going from £200 a month to £400 a month
So still far, far below market rent? 🙄🙄🙄

That is an incredibly low rent, that each or for the whole property ? Is the work you do voluntary, or work in lieu of rent, or do you each get paid an hourly rate ?

If the rent is still within the LHA it should be met in full by benefit.

To be within the LHA it must be within the lowest 30% of local rent assessments.

I can see that you have had advice to try to get it limited to 5%.

I would urge you to think carefully about pushing back for the sake of it, and get advice from Shelter or other housing advice agencies.

If the charity thinks they need to double it in order to stop making a loss they could decide that it’s not worth keeping the property and sell it. ( of course that would depend on the terms on which they purchased or were gifted the property).

If you had to rent elsewhere are you likely to find better or cheaper accommodation?

Rental increases can be above ?% but have to be in line with market rents. So if a 3 bed is usually £900 and your LHA is say £800 and they are going for that, its not worth trying to take to court for an unfair rent increase. LHA will only cover it all if you're not working and within the rates, can be best to check the benefits calculator on the Entitled to website.
The other thing to take into consideration, is rhat if the tenancy agreement states no more than a 5% increase, you can argue it, however, if a 5% increase means they're still at a loss, it's a better financial decision for the charity to then sell the property. Which would probably put you in a worse place under a S.8 notice.

I also have to ask, is the lower rent anything to do with tied accommodation and working for the charity? As obviously tied accommodation takes the rental amount if accommodation into the salary and usually pays lower due to ittoamd thay would need to be reflected, really.

Double check how many bedrooms you are entitled to on LHA: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/BedRoomCalculator.aspx. Then the LHA for your bedroom allowance and postcode: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/. This is how much UC will pay up to. Then check renters rights: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69bc04b8f7b1c24d8e23ce60/The_Renters__Rights_Act_Information_Sheet_2026.pdf

Rent has to be deemed 'fair' and 'fair rent' can only rise in line with the yearly inflation rates. There's no hard 'set' amount as it varies by year and area but it has to be inline with what is fair that year in that area which can be decided by a judge.

Say you pay £400 a month and have for 10 years without any increase and now the new neighbors pays £850 a month. Your landlord can NOT just decided to charge you £850 a month to match the 'market rate' the new contract neighbors pay. They can only increase your rent once annually and only as much as that years fair inflation which is usually around an average of 3.5%. Its on them for not matching the market rate in previous increases, they cannot choose to do it all in one go, they have no 'entitlement' to increase the 'market' rate thats for new contracts only.

You do NOT have to agree to an unfair rent increase, they need a court order to increase it if you don't agree. However do not pay the higher rate, once you have paid it once then it classes as having accepted the new rate and you will be locked in.

Not necessarily, my old house was a large 3 bed house in the nice part of town and was only £550 a month... its just re-rented 2 months ago to a new tenant for £600. A small house or flat or one in the less nice end of town could easily be £400.

Not everywhere has ridiculous rental prices.