This is a question to the blog clinic from Vanessa, who is a tenant in England.

Our landlord died and the property has now passed on to his son. We have a rolling 6 month contract and have lived here for 15 years.

In that time, our rent has only increased once, and we are paying far below the market rate. However, there have been many issues with the house’s repair, including us having to move out twice for a considerable time while still paying rent. Many repairs are needed.

The son (our new landlord) wishes to come round to renegotiate the tenancy.

Question

If he is giving us a new contract, is he limited in how much he can increase the rent as per our previous tenancy agreement?

Answer

Short answer: No.

In your situation, there are two methods the landlord can use to increase the rent:

• He can get you to sign a new tenancy agreement at the new rent, or
• He can serve a notice proposing a new rent under s13 of the Housing Act 1988

1 Getting you to sign a new tenancy agreement

There are no rules about what the new rent can be, but they will not take effect unless you sign the new tenancy agreement. Which you can refuse to do.

At the moment, the landlord can ‘enforce’ this by serving a section 21 notice on you and threatening to evict you if you don’t sign. However, landlords’ ability to do this is limited in time as the new Labour government is looking to remove section 21 under the new Renters Rights Bill.

So when this comes into force, section 21 will no longer be available.

2. Serving a notice proposing a new rent

This can only be done during a periodic tenancy. Under section 13 of the Housing Act 1988 landlords have the right to increase rent in this way once every 12 months.

It is possible for tenants to challenge the new rent, but their grounds for doing this can only be that the proposed rent is higher than the market rent for the property.

You cannot challenge the proposed rent on the basis that the rent in your tenancy agreement is much lower.

This may be changed in the Renters Rights Bill, but it is the situation today.

Conclusion

I am afraid you cannot, long term, prevent your landlord from increasing your rent.

At the moment, you cannot stop an eviction under section 21, and if your current rent is way below the market rent, your landlord will have no problem increasing it under the statutory notice procedure.

Your best course of action, if you want to stay in the property, is to try to negotiate with your landlord, perhaps on the basis that you will not take issue with the poor condition of the property or bring any claim for compensation if he allows the rent to remain low.

In the long term, though, you cannot expect your rent to remain low as the authorities will expect your landlord to bring the property up to standard.

If you want help negotiating a new rent with your landlord, this page lists places where you can find support.

The post Can our new landlord increase our rent? appeared first on The Landlord Law Blog.

Welcome to our weekly Newsround, where we bring you our selection of housing news from the past week.

Well, we have now had the King’s speech, and it looks like housing law reforms are coming down the track.

The Renters Rights Bill

This is fairly similar to the Renters Reform bill which was lost in the ‘washup’ before the last Parliament was dissolved.  This is what the Kings Speech briefing paper said it would do:

The Renters’ Rights Bill will overhaul the private rented sector, with this Government determined to take action where the previous Government failed, transforming rights for the 11 million private tenants in England by:

• abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault evictions’, removing the threat of arbitrary evictions and increasing tenant security and stability. New clear and expanded possession grounds will be introduced so landlords can reclaim their properties when they need to.
• strengthening tenants’ rights and protections, for example we will empower tenants to challenge rent increases designed to force them out by the backdoor and introduce new laws to end the practice of rental bidding wars by landlords and letting agents.
• giving tenants the right to request a pet, which landlords must consider and cannot unreasonably refuse. Landlords will be able to request insurance to cover potential damage from pets if needed.
• applying a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector to ensure homes are safe, secure and hazard free– tackling the blight of poor-quality homes.
• applying ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the sector, setting clear legal expectations about the timeframes within which landlords in the private rented sector must make homes safe where they contain serious hazards.
• creating a digital private rented sector database to bring together key information for landlords, tenants, and councils. Tenants will be able to access information to inform choices when entering new tenancies. Landlords will be able to quickly understand their obligations and demonstrate compliance, providing certainty for tenants and landlords alike. Councils will be able to use the database to target enforcement where it is needed most.
• supporting quicker, cheaper resolution when there are disputes preventing them escalating to costly court proceedings– with a new ombudsman service for the private rented sector that will provide fair, impartial and binding resolution, to both landlords and tenants and reducing the need to go to court.
• making it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits or with children when choosing to let their property– so no family is discriminated against and denied a home when they need it.
• strengthening local councils’ enforcement powers. New investigatory powers will make it easier for councils to identify and fine unscrupulous landlords and drive bad actors out of the sector.

We will have to see how these all pan out in practice when we see the draft bill.  No doubt it will include other things not listed here.

The thing that worries landlords most of course is the removal of section 21.  This is one thing that will not be changed during the bills passage through Parliament.  Solicitor David Smith predicts that they will not wait for the court system to be improved before bringing this into force, as the last government promised.

Other things which worry landlords is what the grounds for possession based on rent arrears will be, and what will happen about student tenancies.

However it does not look, from the briefing paper anyway, as if they are going to abolish fixed terms, as the Renters Reform Bill did.  It will be interesting to see if this does in fact appear in the draft bill.

Although, according to Rightmoves’ David Cox, it is unlikely to be published before October.

Official survey reveals 19% of tenant deposits not protected

This is quite a high figure.  It is a problem, not so much for the tenants as for the landlords.  If the deposit is not protected:

• Landlords will not be able to make any deductions, and
• Tenants will be able to bring a claim for up to 3x the deposit sum through the courts.

This may make those tenants unevictable, as their landlords will not be able to use section 21 (unless the deposit is paid back) and if they bring a claim under the rent arrears grounds tenants will be able to claim the penalty by way of a defence.

If you are a landlord in this situation, our kit here may be able to help.

HMRC and Labour council in joint clampdown on landlords

Liverpool Labour Council’s interim director of housing, Louise Harford, has written a blog explaining how her council is working  with partner agencies such as Merseyside Police, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, HM Revenue and Customs and the Home Office, saying:

Experience and intelligence tells us that patterns of non-compliance in one area means there is a high chance of other non-compliance in other areas, whether that’s with trading standards matters, tax, or other evasive behaviour which all too often, is linked to private rented properties.

Going on to say:

It’s not just unlicensed landlords who are falling foul of the law here, many licensed properties are being used for criminal gains such as drugs, brothels and people trafficking too.

Obviously, things that we do not want.  So this looks like a good plan which maybe other councils will follow.

However there are a  number of comments which point out that Liverpool Council itself is not without problems in the way that it has been managing things!

Landlord exodus continues

A report from TwentyEA seems to show a substantial rise in landlords selling up.  For example in June 2024, 18.4% of all properties listed for sale had also been listed for rent within the three years prior to the sale listing.

Katy Billany, Executive Director of TwentyEA, said:

There’s no doubt our data shows a significant uplift in the number of landlords selling up, either reducing their portfolio size or possibly exiting the sector completely.

There’s currently a lot of uncertainty in the buy-to-let market around what the change in government means for landlords but they have also been hit by steep interest rate rises and rising costs generally, so it’s likely there are several factors at play here.

It looks as if most of these sales are by older landlords, as this post from LandlordZone finds that the average age of landlords is lower due to the number of ‘keen thirty-something investors’.  Which is good news.

However, if the total number of rented properties is reducing, this is  bad news for the sector and government as it will just exacerbate the existing housing crisis.

Snippets

How to keep your home cool
The vast majority of landlords provide ‘decent housing for their tenants’
Lloyds Banking Group reveals plans to convert disused office sites into social housing
Agents urged to lobby MPs to influence new Renters’ Rights Bill
Bidding Wars are not the problem – they’re just a symptom

Newsround will be back next week.

The post Landlord Law Newsround #348 appeared first on The Landlord Law Blog.