Hi there,
My partner and I are on the beginning of the 3rd year of a 3 year fixed tenancy agreement. The anniversary of our tenancy is in mid June.
Recently we received an email from the estate agency requesting a rent increase of 8% starting next month. However, according to our Rent Review clause, the timing for requesting a rent increase has passed, quote:
“It is agreed that the Landlord may give not less than one month’s notice to the Tenant expiring on the next rent due date to increase the Rent every 12 months on the anniversary of the commencement of the Tenancy.”
We want to reply mentioning that the timing has passed and quoting this section but we’re afraid of damaging the good relationship we have with the landlord. We do like him, he has always been very prompt in resolving problems and we always pay on time and keep the house nice and clean.
But the contract is on our side and we plan our finances yearly according to the tenancy commencement date, we weren’t counting on a rent increase now since it’s not according to the contract.
We’re more than happy to pay that rent increase next year as we were looking at staying at this place for long.
If you pay monthly, this simply means that at any time after you’ve lived there a year (which you have), they can give you a month’s notice of a rent increase every 12 months.
Seems a totally standard clause to me and would require you to pay the increase or take them to rent tribunal if you consider it to be excessive.
I have spoken with Citizen’s Advice, as the comments above confused me since the writing on the clause is pretty clear.
As per Citizen’s Advice:
I’ve reviewed the information on Shelter’s website here and our Advice Guide here. Both agree the landlord must abide by the terms of the rent review clause in the tenancy agreement. If there are no further conditions other than those quoted above. You should have received notice of the rent review before the 22nd of May for the new rent to be enacted on 22nd of June. As such, the landlord is breaching the terms of the agreement to attempt to increase the rent outside the terms of the rent review clause.
I would have to agree with the tenant. The landlord can give the notice now, but I believe that it cant take place until the next anniversary of the commencement of the tenancy.
GoodTenant, I guess it depends whether you want to stay there beyond the initial 3 years. If so, you might want to consider a negotiation. Perhaps pointing out the flawed rent review clause, but agreeing to pay it on the basis that it remains the rent for at least the next 12 months.
There’s no need to be aggressive towards me, Collin3. I came here for advice, I’ve been polite and didn’t say anything to warrant that response. I just want to know my rights and follow the contract.
I read tatemono’s answer but it doesn’t make sense to me since the clause clearly says:
“to increase the Rent every 12 months on the anniversary of the commencement of the tenancy”. That means the landlord can only increase the rent yearly on that date. It doesn’t say: “The landlord can increase the rent yearly any time”, it specifically mentions the anniversary of the tenancy.
I went to Citizen’s Advice because I took into account both tatemono’s reply and yours and I wanted to confirm it wasn’t me reading it wrong, which they confirmed it isn’t.
Please don’t be offended, I have no intention to cause trouble to my landlord or anyone.
Having come back and read my response from earlier, I now think I’m wrong. I’m glad you went to CA because I think they’ve got it right. I think the confusion came from me expecting a standard rent review clause and assuming that this is standard when actually it’s worded slightly differently and thereby caught me out.
I think both the letting agency and Colin could have worded things differently.
My advice now would be to take this in for a face to face with the agent and put it gently and politely to them that you feel this breaches the terms of this clause of the contract. Ask them to explain how it doesn’t if they disagree. You might then want to request they let you know why in writing and let us know here.
The intention is clear, to review rent each year, though the wording may be slightly wrong .
If I were a good tenant, looking to stay long term, I would accept the rent increase now and feel lucky I have had several months at a lower rate.
If a tenant took the view to follow the letter of the legal, and ignore the intention, landlord might in future also apply the letter of law, in unforseen ways, eg by raising rent to maximum allowed, rather than less for a good tenant, and be awkward rather than reasonable, building up to a bad relationship on both sides. Not a good relationship for a happy life.
So, what you are saying is that, if I don’t want the landlord to take retaliatory action towards me I have to accept his breach of the terms of the contract. A landlord shouldn’t be retaliatory towards a tenant for following the contract he agreed to and signed. He, and the estate agency, are the ones that made a mistake for proposing the rent increase now. If the wording is not what they wanted, they should have corrected it prior to signing the agreement.
If this situation was reversed and this was something to the benefit of the landlord, no one would be telling the landlord to accept a breach of the contract to be a good landlord.
You quite obviously feel strongly about this, but it really doesn’t help your cause to tar all of us on here who are LLs with the same brush. If I was the LL in this situation, I would be furious at my mistake in signing a contract with an ambiguous clause. I would want to negotiate and if you stood by your rights, I would accept that, but I would be letting you know now that the rent will be increasing in order for me to recoup the money this mistake has cost me. I’ve only ever raised rent once for sitting tenants in nearly 30 years of letting property so I only do it when I really need to. I also budget annually and so if I was in this situation, this little interruption to my planned cashflow would hit me hard. I’d have to get it from somewhere. I’d also make darned sure that my future contracts allowed me more rent raising flexibility and I would also definitely make sure your tenancy goes periodic because I would not want to be tied into a 3 year contract on those terms again. That’s a LL’s perspective.
You can deny them what they are expecting as is your right to (in my opinion), but in doing so, you have to take into account their response. They can issue you a S21 at any time from the end of the fixed term as is their right to do. They can also raise the rent beyond the 8% they’re now proposing when the time comes if the market will bear it. By your own admission, you are “looking at staying at this place for long” [sic] which i assume means you want to be there long term. If so, negotiating is probably the best course of action.
Have you followed the advice I gave in my last message yet?
Situation reversed- no one would tell the landlord ?? Wrong, We have done on this forum , just recently and many of us . You may well have missed that one as you are not a regular poster?
Sometimes when a poster does not entirely get the answer they want , they go on and on and on. Others then never reply back and we hear no more, from them… I wonder what will happen here? Shame we sometimes never know the result.
I didn’t disappear, I just took some time to think about things and decide how to approach this situation as I didn’t want to rush into anything. It also took a bit longer as it had to be through email since the LL was away.
I spoke with the LL about that clause and the restriction it puts in because of how it’s worded. I told him about what CA said and what the solicitor said.
I told him my issue was only the timing of the request, since it invalidates that clause and could mean we could have 2 rent increases in less than 12 months (since we’d like to stay longer, if he’s happy with us). The increase itself I found fair, and so I proposed the following:
To enter a new fixed term in June under his proposed increase, that way it doesn’t invalidate the clause and he gets the increased rent
To change that clause so it doesn’t limit him to issue a rent increase request up to May, to just be every 12 months
Understandably he wasn’t thrilled, no one would be, but I think he understood the issue with that clause and agreed to leave the rent as is until next year.