House rent increase!

Nodferatu

Hello all, quick query. My partner is currently renting a house via HAP, She is on disability and unable to work. She's in the house around a year now and a few days ago she got contacted by the landlord to say he wants to increase the HAP by €50, in other words HAP pay him an extra €50 a month or if not possible he'll take €40 cash more monthly. Her HAP payment is currently maxed and I'm very doubtful they will agree to pay €50 more on top.
My query is that he gave her 1 month before he wants the rent/or HAP to increase. Is that illegal? I been told that a landlord needs to let tennants know 3 months in advance of increase? This was from Cituzens advice btw.
Just looking for advice on this. Thank you!

PucaMama

This is not ok. Your friend should contact HAP and threshold or prtb now.

Nodferatu

Well she actually stumbled across this, shes planning to try and return to education through an Education Training Board centre, and was in citizens advice to make sure the HAP payment doesn't get affected by her returning to college, she just mentioned the rent increase and thats how she found this info out, and was fully planning and willing to pay this rent increase in 3 weeks time unknowingly!

Edgware

Nodferatu wrote: »

Well she actually stumbled across this, shes planning to try and return to education through an Education Training Board centre, and was in citizens advice to make sure the HAP payment doesn't get affected by her returning to college, she just mentioned the rent increase and thats how she found this info out, and was fully planning and willing to pay this rent increase in 3 weeks time unknowingly!

The landlord will learn the right way to do it so she will be paying sooner or later. Of course he also may want to sell the house

Nodferatu

Edgware wrote: »

The landlord will learn the right way to do it so she will be paying sooner or later. Of course he also may want to sell the house

He only bought the house one year ago. His partner owns in the range of double figure number of houses. I'm sure he knows what he's doing

dennyk

Is she in an RPZ? If so, the landlord can review rent after a year of tenancy, but can only increase it by a maximum of 4% over the previous rent, and he must provide a 90 day notice. If she is not in an RPZ, the landlord can't conduct a rent review until she has been there for two years (and the 90 day notice period still applies).

If the new rent is more than the allowable HAP limit in her area, she can try to negotiate a larger HAP payment with the local authority; they do have some flexibility there, though it's at their discretion whether to allow a higher payment or not. If they won't provide it, she'll have to pay the difference between the HAP payment and the actual rent to the landlord herself.

Nodferatu

dennyk wrote: »

Is she in an RPZ? If so, the landlord can review rent after a year of tenancy, but can only increase it by a maximum of 4% over the previous rent, and he must provide a 90 day notice. If she is not in an RPZ, the landlord can't conduct a rent review until she has been there for two years (and the 90 day notice period still applies).

If the new rent is more than the allowable HAP limit in her area, she can try to negotiate a larger HAP payment with the local authority; they do have some flexibility there, though it's at their discretion whether to allow a higher payment or not. If they won't provide it, she'll have to pay the difference between the HAP payment and the actual rent to the landlord herself.

Thank you for the response this is the info I been looking for. We didn't know what a 'RPZ' was so I googled it and after some research using the house postcode it comes up as that it isn't a Rent Pressure Zone. She's paying €60 a month to landlord for rent and €27 a week to HAP, this will increase her rent to €100 to landlord P.M. on top of the €27 each week to HAP.
She is quite an anxious and nervous person and doesn't know how to handle it with the landlord as regards how to tell him and how to go about getting this sorted.
She's likes the house and wants to stay there and the landlord seems nice enough.

dennyk

Here's the RTB info on rent reviews outside a Rent Pressure Zone, and Citizens Information has more details here. She should politely inform the landlord that he's not permitted to conduct a rent review until 24 months after the date she started her tenancy; at that time, the landlord can review her rent and can send her a notice of a rent increase to take effect 90 days from the date of the notice. The rent increase can only be to "market rent" and in the notice the landlord must provide three examples of similar properties to demonstrate that the new rent is comparable.

As she's been in the property for more than six months and her tenancy started after December 2016, she has security of tenancy for six years under Part 4 of the Residential Tenancies Act, meaning that the landlord cannot end her tenancy during that time unless he is selling the property, moving himself or a family member into it, or performing substantial renovations that would require vacant possession, so she doesn't need to worry that he will decide to kick her out if she pushes back on his illegal rent review. I'd still suggest being polite about it to try to maintain a cordial relationship with the landlord if possible, but he has no legal leg to stand on and she should be firm about her rights. If she needs assistance, she can contact Threshold, an Irish charity who provide assistance on housing matters, and they should be able to offer her some support and advice on how to deal with her landlord.

Nodferatu

dennyk wrote: »

Here's the RTB info on rent reviews outside a Rent Pressure Zone, and Citizens Information has more details here. She should politely inform the landlord that he's not permitted to conduct a rent review until 24 months after the date she started her tenancy; at that time, the landlord can review her rent and can send her a notice of a rent increase to take effect 90 days from the date of the notice. The rent increase can only be to "market rent" and in the notice the landlord must provide three examples of similar properties to demonstrate that the new rent is comparable.

As she's been in the property for more than six months and her tenancy started after December 2016, she has security of tenancy for six years under Part 4 of the Residential Tenancies Act, meaning that the landlord cannot end her tenancy during that time unless he is selling the property, moving himself or a family member into it, or performing substantial renovations that would require vacant possession, so she doesn't need to worry that he will decide to kick her out if she pushes back on his illegal rent review. I'd still suggest being polite about it to try to maintain a cordial relationship with the landlord if possible, but he has no legal leg to stand on and she should be firm about her rights. If she needs assistance, she can contact Threshold, an Irish charity who provide assistance on housing matters, and they should be able to offer her some support and advice on how to deal with her landlord.

I've showed this response to my partner and she is extremely grateful and thankful for the advice and help. We both are. We would like for her to continue to have a good relationship and doesn't want any problems. Just wanted to get the legal advice.

Edgware

Nodferatu wrote: »

He only bought the house one year ago. His partner owns in the range of double figure number of houses. I'm sure he knows what he's doing

Welcome to Varadkars Ireland

Nodferatu

Contacted the landlord via email, explaining the situation and legislations involved and within 5 minutes he responded saying he just literally found out and was about to contact her to let her know to disregard the previous email about rent increase. lol

ted1

Are you living in the house with her?

Nodferatu

ted1 wrote: »

Are you living in the house with her?

Nope we don't live together.