Our tenants reject our rent adjustment, for the coming new contract in March 2024.
They say its unfair as rent was increased in September 2023.
However, our rental figure is below market value for near by similiar properties.
We do need to keep up with the market conditions to balance the books.
How to reply to tenants given the current market situation?
Its a question of keeping a balance for reasonable rent adjustment.
Any thought on this topic, please?
Normally for an ongoing tenancy you cannot raise the rent earlier than 52 weeks after the previous increase. The exception is if your tenant was to agree to it or you have a rent review clause in the tenancy agreement that allows for more frequent increases.
The situation you describe is that you intend to renew the tenancy and not allow it to go periodic. TBH I am not sure of the legalities although thinking about it logically you are starting a completely new tenancy and the rent on the old tenancy should have no bearing on the new one even though they are the same tenants.
Your tenants have a right to feel hard done by and they are not obliged to sign a new tenancy agreement. If so you will have a situation on your hands. You will either have to come to a compromise or serve notice for them to leave.
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Your tenant is not obliged to sign a new contract, so you cant enforce a rent increase that way.
yeah, thanks for the advice.
will go for a compromise and reduce the rent adjustment to 50% less.
Hopefully that is acceptable.
We increased 4 % previously so as to avoid a jump on rent increase.
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It is a bit unfair to raise the rent 6 months later. Can you not wait a further 6 months so it’s been a complete year since last increase?
Maybe let the current tenancy go onto a periodic then create new one with the increased rent after the 6 months…
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Yes it’s unfair there’s a cost of living crises. Please take that into account while you make money from our limited housing stock. If you are turning a profit, be a good landlord, be happy with that and not a price gouger.
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I agree Laurence it’s not reasonable, but can i give you some idea of what being a landlord is like before we’re all labelled ‘gougers’.
I rent out 2 flats. Interest rates are 5x what they were a year or so back, costing me £600/m more. 2 months ago i got a bill for £7000 for building repairs. This week I’ve paid for a freezer repair, a cooker repair and new washer dryer. It’s not easy money. We do our best but we struggle too.
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I know of places rent dosent change massively but we do havevto keep up with the times unfortunately thats how it thats why everyone is in that position unless u have a special arrangements in places but at the end if the day everyone knows things do go up and will continues to go up so always best of all in work just a very tuff world we r all living in just keep smiling
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Hi, please don’t tar us all with the same brush. Like Alan27, in the past 12 months, I’ve replaced a boiler, oven, hob, fridge freezer, carpets and a bathroom suite costing me around £10k. As a result, I won’t make any profit on this property for 2 years.
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Profit is not a dirty word . If we have an employer and go to work ,we receive a wage .That is our profit. A return on our labours ,likewise with a landlord
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Strange that in a capitalist country the attitude to LL is so communist.
A gentle reminder, you can’t get on a property ladder not because LL took all available properties. It’s because almost no new affordable accommodation is being built, plus the government has scrapped the target for construction for the future. So, the problem will only get worse.
And the waiting list for council properties is about 10 years.
And the salaries haven’t gone up with inflation for years, so few can afford to buy.
Just hope that some TT are more realistic than others.
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Landlords are not charities…many are accidental LL may have moved in with partner etc…they too have bills to pay…alternatively try renting with local authority/HA …if anyone can get on the list
Not All LL are price gougers just like not all tenants are good tenants…
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You took a risk when getting a mortgage to buy a property to let. The fact that interest rates have gone up is not your tenant’s fault or problem, why should they pay for that?
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Before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, it would cost £70.00 to fill the average family car with fuel. After war broke out, the price of that fuel doubled. It is not the car drivers fault that the fuel has gone up but it is their problem if they want to continue driving their car…
I don’t know what the answer is, possibly, a fairer way of raising rents would be for rent increases to be pegged to the Rate Of Inflation (RPI). Some tenancies already use RPI to raise the rent annually. What are your thoughts on using RPI…
If you use this method then LLs will leave big time.And if a LL isn’t making a profit then you leave for pasture new , unfortunately the tenants lose either way , I have increased my rents by £150 per house as not just the mortgage but letting fees , insurance which has tripled have all gone north and if they did the Scottish rent increase then I would pack it in
Caroline the point I’m trying to make is landlords are not just raking it in whilst tenants struggle. I put my rent up 4.5% this year. I’ll make no profit with the costs I mentioned.
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Jason
I am new (1 year) to the game, so still learning . From what I have read from different forums, is prior to Liz Truss crashing the economy, many private landlords either held rent levels the same year after year or raised them by minimal amounts. As a result, these landlords are now forced to make significant hikes to their rents which puts them at odds with their tenants. My thinking is that if rents were to rise every year inline with RPI it would be a more transparent system where the landlord isn’t the one to determine the rent increase.
I’m of the view that if you need a large buy to let mortgage, and don’t understand that mortgages will go up at some point (after going down/ staying the same for years), you shouldn’t be a landlord. Landlords come on here and complain about costs, but these should have been factored in when considering letting. I think that some people just see return percentages and forget that they have to pay for maintenance/ repairs/ replacements as well as voids, service charges, tax etc. Most of the time your property will be increasing in value, if landlords can’t afford to make their properties decent places to live, they should find another way to make money. If lots of landlords sell up, the housing market will not collapse, no government can allow this. If there are more properties for sale, the law of supply and demand should bring house prices down so more people will be able to buy. We need to return to being a country of owners rather than renters.
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If you do it your way then the rental market would collapse as you can’t have LL paying more in mortgage payments and rent only going up say 3% per year and I know many LLs in Scotland who are not at all happy and losing thousands