How does everyone go about their yearly rent increase.?
I personally think it should be in line with year’s inflation percentage rise and wish to be fair and upfront.
Do you have to give 2 months advance warning?
Thanks for advice.
Inflation is a reasonable measure to use although you’d need to check this doesn’t exceed market rates as you are likely to struggle to justify higher than market rates.
Personally I base it on tenant behaviour and happy to let it slide to around 10% or so below market rates if tenants are good.
Notice period is currently 1 month but will become 2 months from April
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Hi @Mel10,
We’ve got a detailed guide on our blog that explains what’s usually considered a fair rent increase. Alternatively, you can use our Rent Calculator to work out an accurate and up-to-date rental price based on our millions of data points.
For notice periods, it depends on whether the tenancy is within the fixed-term or is periodic. There are different rules, so the timing and how you propose a rent increase can vary.
Give me a shout if you have any other questions. Hope that helps!
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… and you will have to serve an S13 to increase rent from May onwards when the RRA comes into effect.
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To be clear, under the RRA when it comes in to force, it’s all about rental market rates in the area. Hence a general inflation measure is not necessarily that appropriate.
I would do a market assessment today as that gives you a stronger baseline position for the next increase under the new regime. If there aren’t a lot of comparable properties, you can also look at things like social rent inflation which is available for your local area.
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set up email alerts at property portals online for rentals similar to yours that come up in postcodes where you have property. That will give you a historic record of rental prices for you to calibrate yours against. It’ll also tell you how dynamic the market is.
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This is great advice but, for a non professional landlord, a bit of a chore. Check the validity of the advert, determine ‘local area’, save and retain all the pages, tabulate and average. Even then it only shows rents advertised not achieved.
Why is OR not providing a service here?
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Absolutely agree this would be useful for Open rent to assist with. However I suppose they can’t determine what rents should be or that would be biased.
Hi David could I ask if you rate the open rent.. rent now with rent collection, contract etc as only ever used DPS for deposit, my own contract thanks
OR don’t need to say what your rent could be (legally dubious). Just the tools to more easily say what the change in rental prices is in a user-supplied ‘local area’ with a user-supplied filter. The application of that knowledge is totally with the landlord to contextualise.
@Marc7 what service do you want that the OR rent calculator (referred to earlier in the chain) doesn’t provide?
For indications of trends in rents in an area, think some agents do provide regular reports if you sign up for these eg Stirling Ackroyd (Google ‘rental price index Stirling Ackroyd’)
Most likely all that will exist even for large agents will be rates for new rentals/tenancy agreements which are a minority of rentals.
Sometimes a new rate will happen when a LL issues the relevant notice (and nobody except tenant and LL see), sometimes when they end old tenancy and start a new one. OR won’t have data in many cases even if it could be extracted - they are primarily a listings business, and there’s no particular reason the LLs who do use OR to create a tenancy will tell OR what the increase was (unless using the rent collection service which will also be a fraction). Sometimes rent increases reflect works done or planned to improve a property or increases in a LL’s costs - if service charges or other costs go up a lot they will seek to cover and tenant has option to challenge increase, negotiate or leave if new rate is more than they can get a similar property for elsewhere.
Best
My tenant claims benefits so I check what her maximum is and always keep her just below.
Social rent increase would be great as they are around 1,5 -2%above inflation they work it out to
about 6%