Lease was up in April. Received new lease today. 4% increase

joeguevara wrote: »

Where are all the people going do you think?

AirBNB and people moving out of cities back home.

joeguevara wrote: »

Where are all the people going do you think?

Lots of foreigners in tech/finance moved back to their home countries which generally are way cheaper than Dublin. Retail/hospitality jobs lost permanently, workers have left for good. Most of these people were renters. Dublin was euro zone’s most expensive/overpriced city for renters last year. Personally I started a Dublin based job a few months ago and have yet to set foot in Dublin. WFH until next March at the earliest and hopefully longer. Would ideally like to just buy and move up next year without pissing any money away on rent in the interim.

joeguevara wrote: »

It is going to be very interesting to see if the work from home will continue. I hated it when I had to do it for the short period. Not that it wasn't nice but definitely too many distractions.

It will for a lot of places, or at least part time WFH. The technical issues for those who can do it are mostly ironed out at this stage. Teams and Zoom are constantly updating and have opened up to third party apps.

Every business must be considering it at least. The money to be saved is astronomical.

OP have a look at properties in the area and see what the prices/demand is. Might be worth pushing back on the increase. 4% isn't a lot to give up for a good tenant. The LL might have difficulty renting it out. Even a month or two lost rent would put him in the red compared to the increase.

joeguevara wrote: »

Rents are not falling.,

they are ...you just need to do a little digging. Speaking of Dublin only

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Wondering where I stand on this

My lease ended last April. We didn't sign a new lease. Usually we would. We were due a 4% increase but that didn't happen due to covid. Landlord got in touch today to let us know he wants to sign a new lease. Covid rent freeze ended last week so he wants to increase by 4%.

Due to the nature of rolling leases, does this mean we should be keeping the original rent for a year until April 2021?

I wouldn't usually try to angle shoot like this but it's just the timing of it has annoyed me. He clearly done it himself by waiting until the end of this rent freeze.

Did you get a proper rent review letter and three comparable properties OP? Is the new rent cheaper than comparable property in the area?

FionnK86 wrote: »

I'd a similar situation with my landlord, he needed to increase rent because of RPZ, so we can to arrangement where he increased on contract but I didn't pay the extra amount.

Sounds like a good plan. One thing to be wary of, when a relationship is good, no issues. When anything deteriorates, he would have a clear cut case for the back payment of the shortfall. If there is a side agreement in writing, then both are players in possible tax fraud. Doubt anything like that will happen but I’m always wary. But ye both seem like pragmatic people.

FionnK86 wrote: »

Best landlord I've ever had and I'm sorry to say after 3 years we'll be parting ways as I'm looking for a place with the girlfriend. He's showing house tomorrow so I presume he's happy with the state of the place. We didn't write anything down, lease says were paying the 4%. I know we're exposed for the shortfall but time will tell if he uses it but based on last 3 years I'd say were all clear.

Funny thing is, he's reduced the rent down to rate before the 4% for new tenants because he's not getting takers, sad to say because it's a great house!

I have an apartment that I rent out to a couple for the last 6 years I think. Never raised the rent and never had an issue with them. Literally they wouldn’t be able to survive if they paid market rate. I make up the shortfall (500) a month for the mortgage. During Covid, I told them that I didn’t expect rent but they paid without fail.

On the flip side, my mate who is a plumber fixed something there and told me they have it like a palace. The one thing that I worry about is when they leave, I’m stuck at the rate I gave them plus 4% to the next tenant.

But delighted to hear stories like yours. When it works it works.

Due to the nature of rolling leases, does this mean we should be keeping the original rent for a year until April 2021?

That's not how it works here. When a fixed term lease ends and a new one is not entered into, your tenancy becomes a periodic tenancy, based on how often you pay your rent (e.g. once a month means you have a monthly periodic tenancy). Outside of a fixed term lease, the landlord can review the rent whenever a rent review is permitted by law, which in the case of a property in an RPZ is at least one year after the previous rent was set (which was the date you were given a valid notice of the new rent amount during a previous rent review, *not* the time the new rent actually took effect). There's no legal issue with them doing a rent review for your tenancy at this time. In fact, they could legally put up the rent slightly more than 4% if they wanted to, since it's been more than one year since the prior rent was set.

That said, they still do have to provide you with the proper notice of a rent review, including examples of the rents for three comparable properties to demonstrate that their rent is at or below the "market rent". See this page for sample rent review notices.

Also, note that you are not required to actually sign a new lease. The landlord can still put up your rent, and you've no choice in that, but you aren't obligated to sign a fixed term lease in the process if you don't want to; you still have security of tenure under Part 4. (If you plan to stay in the property for the proposed lease term, though, it might be to your benefit to sign a new lease, as it would mean the landlord won't be able to terminate the tenancy even for an allowable Part 4 reason during the lease term...)

I wouldn't usually try to angle shoot like this but it's just the timing of it has annoyed me. He clearly done it himself by waiting until the end of this rent freeze.

Not sure what you mean by this; your landlord was legally obligated to wait until the freeze expired, as it wasn't permissible to conduct a rent review during the freeze period. Now that it has, they are moving ahead with their planned rent review. Why would the timing annoy you? Were it not for the rent review freeze, you'd have been paying a higher rent since April; now you won't be paying it until November (as they must give you 90 days notice via a valid rent review notice before the new rent takes effect).

You can thank the last Government for forcing Landlords to increase the rent 4% pa.

joeguevara wrote: »

Not necessarily. My mate had a tenant who refused to pay for 18 months. Credit rating screwed and house wrecked.

My worst experience was bridewell ringing me saying I was given as a character reference. Tenant had moved in day before and found with 1kg of cocaine. Luckily he left the minute he got bail.

When letting did he not notice the handcuffs would have been a red flag to most LLs

size5 wrote: »

I would be wary of doing the above. First of all if you have not increased the rent for 6 years, the property is not attracting market rent. You have already identified the problem that all is well until your excellent tenants move out, if you need to sell it is unlikely that an investor will purchase it. My advise is if you have excellent tenants you don't need to increase the rent every year BUT maybe every second year as least keep the rent close to the market rate

Completely agree.

i_surge wrote: »

Brave landlord jacking up the price in a declining economy. I was of the impression this can be reviewed every few years, not annually.

I advise the OP to move out of principle.

The government forces them to raise it because in a downturn they won't get any protection.

Deleted User wrote: »

Thanks for the lengthy reply (thanks everyone who did reply).

I'll elaborate on this a bit. I wanted to sign a new lease in April, as we do every year. We didn't this because of restrictions. I reached out again, not sure exactly when, I think mid June but he still wasn't happy to meet up. Again this felt completely reasonable and the LL is in his 70's. I'm hardly gonna push him to meet face to face in a global pandemic. Then a few days after the rent freeze ends, he's all for meeting up. That's what I mean by the timing irritating me. Restrictions almost felt like an excuse to delay.

But after reading this thread, even if I did sign a lease at that time, he would have been in his right to ask for a rent increase at this time regardless, is that correct?

Yes