Landlord trickery

My household received a rather unpleasant letter from our landlord yesterday informing us of our 'revised rent' after the lease expires at the end of March. To be fair, we live in a nice four-bedroom house in a pricey area of London, but it's kitted out very cheaply for the rental market - it's a great house with nice big rooms but everything from the toaster to the mattresses is poor quality.

Still, we like it, but at £2,300 for a four-bedroom, two bathroom house (for five people) our owners are earning a nice income for it. So we were a bit unhappy to get a letter telling us our rent was going up by £125 a month after the lease expires on March 31. That's a 5% increase - more than double the 2.3% rate of inflation. Not only that, despite having nearly three months left on the lease, we have to give them an answer about whether we are renewing it within ten days or pay a £45 administration fee.

Estate agents annoy me. When we moved into this house we had to pay around £120 each in fees for 'administration and credit checking', despite them simply printing off a standard lease, which had to be redone three times (because they got our names, address and rental amount wrong - what terrific administration!).

Let me know your solutions for tackling the rip-off tactics of landlords and estate agents by posting a comment below. No need for a URL.

- Sascha, This is Money

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Comments

[Sascha - This is Money]

Thanks (JR Stevens) for providing a bit of a look at the flipside of this. I'm not a homeowner but friends of mine who are and have had nightmare tenants assure me that it's not always a good way to make a quick buck. I also agree withholding rent is not always a good tactic as you will often require rental references if you move into a new place.

But I disagree with you about the costs, etc. If you own a house and rent it out, the tenant bears the cost of council tax, and you're right, it's skyrocketing (another hefty bill for us). Costs do rise every year, but they should rise with in line with inflation and we're happy to pay an increase reflecting that.

As an update, all it took was a call to the agent to say that we were weren't prepared to foot an increase like that and they immediately halved it... Clearly they knew they were out of line. It's a good lesson in remembering that everything's negotiable.

Keep on posting!
Thanks, - Sascha, This is Money

[J R Stevens]

Well from the 'dark' side I'm a landlord and with the comment, you won't last long in accommodation because your post shows you have no intention of keeping an agreement you have signed, where a deposit cannot be considered rent. So you bleat about a landlord when it is you promoting breaking an agreement, not the landlord.

Likewise, you stop paying the rent and you won't be able to move anyway, as no landlord will give accommodation to someone that stopped paying the previous landlord.

With regards to the 5% increase in rent you haven't said whether this is the first increase or a yearly increase, and I'd like to remind you that whilst inflation may be said to be X% it doesn't stop council tax going up much higher, and it doesn't stop the remorseless cost of ever increased legislation that pushes up costs and does little else.

The other post about every year my rent has gone up....that is life, costs go up, bills do go up and wages are supposed to.

Where I do agree though is the cost of renewing agreements. I don't charge and I don't see why anyone else should. I pay my association £6 for a set of agreements or admin charges by letting agents....WHY? I've been to see properties where they are unaware I know the legalities and had all sorts of rubbish given as excuses why such massive charges exist, and on one occasion when I queried why a new agreement was being charged for after 6 months, I was told it was safer....WRONG! After the initial agreement it becomes a periodic, giving benefits to both parties.

I've also just withheld the first deposit in my life, after a 'friend' promised me faithfully just before Christmas that she would ensure it was totally ready to let after I had let her stay an extra week where it was her idea to move anyway....I even sent her a letter a month beforehand telling her the best way she could ensure she got all of her deposit back. i.e. professionally clean carpets and ensure garden and everywhere else was clean and tidy....SHE TOTALLY IGNORED IT... I had to withdraw the property, lost cost of 3 adverts, which brought me into Christmas period where nobody lets. Actual losses are around £1600 and deposit was £575, giving a very good reason why you cannot just decide yourself to stop paying the rent, as then you will end up blacklisted with a county court judgement for any losses.

Surely though the problem is the system which is archaic and divisive. I don't want to know or make judgements on those that or are not receiving benefits...but unfortunately I have to because of the mortgage and potential losses.

How much safer it would be to tenants and landlords if there were a Government backed insurance scheme, whereby the tenant's only admin fees were for an government backed insurance, giving surety to the landlord that the property would be returned in a suitable condition, at the time specfied, and that then the government would ensure vacant possession. That way landlords would be more condusive to letting for 3 years or so at a time and your rents would not keep going up to pay for the scumbags who don't pay a penny in rent and smash everything up.

At present, it is a minefield letting to tenants, and for tenants too. The same goes for when a landlord wants to get a disruptive tenant out. it should NOT take 5 months which it does now. You would not go into a TV shop and walk out with a TV and then expect the TV shop to have to seek a court order to recover the TV, so why should a landlord? People often forget too that when a landlord is seeking possession because of unruly tenants....those tenants can often wreak havoc on communities, but where they are virtually protected for months on end, leaving decent tenants suffering.

We really need a single scheme to take the risk out of it for both tenants and landlords....I don't care if I don't hold the deposit, and I don't make judgement on someone else because they have fallen on bad times, or some of the other prejudice in letting....but a government bonded insurance scheme as exists in France, would make it safer for everyone. if the cost was £60, then it would still represent a fantastic saving in costs to the tenant, where I've heard some being quoted £500 initial admin. fee and £150 for each agreement. I RIP OFF.

[JANET]

YES I AGREE ABOUT LANDLORDS,IVE BEEN RENTING FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS EVERY YEAR MY RENT HAS GONE UP.I RECENTLY PAID AN ADMIN FEE OF £110.AS IM MOVING TO A SMALLER PROPERTY, THREE DAYS LATER IM TOLD THE LAND LORD IS NOW RENTING THE PROPERTY OUT PRIVATLEY.BUT WHY HAVE THEY NOW PUT UP A TO LET BOARD, FED UP JAN

Sascha, a really thorough exam of your landlord-provided furniture should do the trick. Is it really fire retardant. Is the toaster a fire hazard? If you look hard enough, you'll find things that the landlord ought to be replacing. Get your money's worth out of the tight-fisted wotsit.

[Seamus McCauley]

When you rent a flat, the landlord takes a deposit. Fair enough - if you trash the place, they've got some of your money to fix it.

Alas, some unscrupulous landlords simply regard this deposit as extra income and at the end of the rental period invent some fanciful charge - admin, perhaps, or cleaning - which by an astonishing coincidence exactly matches the value of the deposit. You never see the deposit again.

The solution to this, I've found, is to stop paying rent at whatever point in the tenancy will mean the deposit held by the landlord will exactly match the rent you owe when you move out. It's often one month from the end - one month's rent is a common enough deposit amount. That way, when you move out they keep the deposit (as the rent you owe) but they can't screw any additional money out of you to cover their imaginery extras.