Hello,
Ive had a tenant in my flat for 2.5 years, already on a periodic contract. I increased the rent in January this year, and had the tenant sign a letter of agreement (confirmed via email and signed attached letter of confirmation) With the new RRA, do i now need to update the actual AST contract, write a new contract including this increase before 1st May?
My understanding (till now) is written confirmation is suffice, plus the additional confirmation of the new rent payments being paid into my account also. Anything else i need to do? So the AST thats on openrent is still the old rent amount, but i have confirmation via email and signed letter that it was increased and then the new payments into my account.
If the T has already paid the rent at the increased rate, they have tacitly accepted it. You donât need to do anything else.
When rent is increased, thereâs never been any need to change value of the rent on an AST. This wonât change under the RRA when ASTs are abolished. The only differences are that from May 1st, youâll need to formally issue a S13 notice to increase the rent, and canât increase the rent more than once a year or more than market rate.
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PS⌠congratulations on earning the âlongest title of a threadâ award 
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@Janine6 should be ok but in principle there could be an issue if you had another party to the contract who hasnât signed the increase
So eg a guarantor might claim they only guaranteed the original amount if theyâve not signed the increase. Thatâs why separate agreement with guarantors are recommended according to others here
You might also want to check your rent gtee insurance if you have that, covers the new amount
You also should tell OR if the rent collection is via OR so they know the extra isnât rent in advance
Sorry if all v obvious
Good luck
This was discussed a while back on these forums. I believe that the conclusion was that once you increase the rent, the guarantor is legally exempt from their role because the contract has effectively been changed and doesnât match the terms they agreed in the initial deed.
I argued that it might be legally possible to hold them accountable for what they did agree to (i.e. the amount prior to the first increase), but I seem to remember that wiser people than me disagreed.
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@tatemono I think as you say there was a risk guarantors might be exempt and thatâs why separate agreement with the guarantor was a good idea.
@David122 I âthinkâ advised separate guarantor agreements. I donât know the legalities of how that solves the issue or whether a guarantor should simply also sign off on the rent increase
Great, thankyou for that confirmation. I had looked in various info sites but it was a little unclear so wanted to see what other people thought. Appreciate the response.
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why, thankyou sir! I alway aim to excel!
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The N R L A unlimited guarantor agreement says:
The Guarantee shall continue in force even if there is a variation to the terms of the Agreement with
or without the Guarantorâs consent (including any increase in the amount of Rent payable in respect
of the property by the Tenant)âŚ.
Iâm not sure whether this has ever been challenged as an unfair term in an upper court.
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That should be fine, a signed letter plus the tenant actually paying the new amount is usually enough to show they accepted the increase and generally courts and insurers look for that paper trail so keep scans of the signed letter, the email thread and the bank statements as evidence because its the paperwork that will save you hassle later. Only real caveat is if thereâs a guarantor or rent guarantee insurance, guarantors can sometimes argue they only covered the original sum so you may want them to sign a short confirmation or have a separate deed, and from 1 May youâll need to follow the Renters Reform Act process for increases (only once a year and formal notice) 