Rent increase megathread

Electric Sheep

FrStone wrote: »

Anyone with a basic backing in business should know that in a functioning rental market, the rent paid should not cover mortgage repayments. Sure that's basically arbitrage..

No body sound expect for someone else to be paying for the equity in their investment.

The cost of the upkeep and running of the property, mortgage interest, local property tax and a small profit should be the amount of the rent in a functioning market.

It's madness that someone can buy a house and have a mortgage or €1,000 and charge €1,500 in rent. Until the market is more normal it is essential these rules are introduced

I think that very few Irish landlords (if you are to go by the sample on Boards.ie) have any backing in business whatsoever.

chakwal

1) I got a call on 19th January from property agent asking if i agree to rent review they sent in letter on 22nd Dec.
2) I didnt get the letter.
3) My property agent is saying they put the letter of rent review by hand in my post box on 22nd dec evening.
According to them letter was dated 22nd December and signed.
4) They are going to send the letter again to me in post. in the mean while i asked them to send in the email as well to see details.
5) In the email, besides the letter template, they also sent a photo taken with envelope in hand infront of post box.
6) I asked should they not increase by 4% with new law. They said, rent was reviewed and letter handed over on 22nd according to old law.
7) they have given me 3 other property rent as reference to show my rent is not more then those.
8) note that my rent was not reviewed for last 2 years as well. it was increased on 8 september 2014 last time.
9) last time my lease was renewed from 9th sept. 2014 to 8th september 2015. from that point, I was never asked by proprety agent to sign a new lease.


I see that new law became effective on 24th december for 4% cap. In above scenario, do I have any option or just will end up paying 25% more rent
as they deliverd letter by hand themselves on 22nd dec although I didnt get it.

Pawwed Rig

Sounds suspicious. Why would they take a photo putting a letter in a box? Contact PRTB.

suds1984

Out of interest is the photo date stamped??

super_furry

They're trying to con you. Someone screwed up and didn't raise the rent in time and now they're trying to cover their arse.

Surely something as time critical as that letter would be sent via registered post and if they can't prove they sent it, they didn't.

Grolschevik

The date the photo was taken should be in the metadata of the file.

quadrifoglio verde

FrStone wrote: »

Anyone with a basic backing in business should know that in a functioning rental market, the rent paid should not cover mortgage repayments. Sure that's basically arbitrage..

No body sound expect for someone else to be paying for the equity in their investment.

The cost of the upkeep and running of the property, mortgage interest, local property tax and a small profit should be the amount of the rent in a functioning market.

It's madness that someone can buy a house and have a mortgage or €1,000 and charge €1,500 in rent. Until the market is more normal it is essential these rules are introduced

Tax rate at 52% though
Yes there's mortgage interest write offs but you'll find that the landlord receiving 1500 is still topping up the repayments

Lumen

Grolschevik wrote: »

The date the photo was taken should be in the metadata of the file.

That is data is editable, so proves nothing.

If only there was a way to register the fact that something was posted. They could call it Registered Post.

JP 1800

quadrifoglio verde wrote: »

Tax rate at 52% though
Yes there's mortgage interest write offs but you'll find that the landlord receiving 1500 is still topping up the repayments

But that should always be the case unless you own the property out right, just like my pension I have to top up or pay in periodically. If we could get someone else to completely pay our mortgages and cover our expenses we would all become landlords, what could possibly go wrong?. It is this mentality of getting some one else to cover the mortgage and expenses that has the system messed up and forced the government to put a cap on rents.

Grolschevik

Lumen wrote:

That is data is editable, so proves nothing.

That said, it's worth checking, as they're not going to edit it to put themselves in. If wrong...

exaisle

I think they're too late anyhow.....I suspect that they should have written to you before 23rd September. 90 days are required of a rent increase. Your rent can't increase by more than 4% after 24th December...

hidinginthebush

Paulw wrote: »

Yes, rent control is in place. It was signed in to law on the 23rd Dec 2016.

http://www.rtb.ie/dispute-resolution/dispute-resolution/rent-reviews

The rent cannot increase above a maximum of 4% in rent control areas (new areas added yesterday).

One thing... our last rent review was more than 2 years ago, so can our rent be increased by more than 4% to bring it up to market levels?

My housemate thinks the rent review take priority over the 4% rule if it's below market rates, I though the 4% cap trumps everything, but can't find a definitive answer either way

bigpink

hidinginthebush wrote: »

Is the rent cap scheme effective yet? We received a letter recently telling us our rent would be increasing from 1300 to 1900 in April, living in Dublin. Have we any recourse under this scheme?

600 increase ****kk

Paulw

exaisle wrote: »

I think they're too late anyhow.....I suspect that they should have written to you before 23rd September. 90 days are required of a rent increase. Your rent can't increase by more than 4% after 24th December...

I could be wrong, but I believe that if notice of increase was served before the 23rd Dec then it is valid.

But, from what the OP says, it all sounds very dodgy and worth disputing.

Paulw

hidinginthebush wrote: »

One thing... our last rent review was more than 2 years ago, so can our rent be increased by more than 4% to bring it up to market levels?

Nope, it's 4% of the previous rate. If the landlord charged below market rate previously, then that is their loss.

All details are on the RTB website - http://www.rtb.ie/dispute-resolution/dispute-resolution/rent-pressure-zones

April 73

A notice delivered before the new laws came into effect is valid provided it adhered to the requirements at the time.

It's a bit strange that the agency are contacting you on Jan 19th to ask if you're accepting the notice & the increase. It seems a case of your word against theirs as to whether the notice was actually delivered & received. Not sure what a photo of a postbox proves.

Pawwed Rig

April 73 wrote: »

Not sure what a photo of a postbox proves.

Absolutely nothing. The fact it exists is suspicious in itself.

GGTrek

Except for the last post from Paulw. The rest of the posts in this thread are just very bad and wrong legal advice.

I suggest the OP to first read the following:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2004/act/27/section/6/enacted/en/html

If the letting agent presents a witness that says that the notice was served on the date it was served or worse if there is a witness signing the notice you received, the duty is on you to prove that you have not received it on that date. Believe me this is very hard to prove, the rtb disputes are full of tenants trying to be smart alleging that they did not receive the notice or they only received it a few weeks later. It does not matter if you were on holiday or somewhere else. In the vast majority of cases notices were deemed to have been served. The letting agent needs to be very dumb to not be able to prove that he served you the notice on the date he said in front of an RTB adjudicator. If they present a witness it is game over for the type of accusations some of the posts above were raising.
Hand served notices with witness are the legally BEST way to serve notices for landlords or letting agents. All the other methods suffer from serious drawbacks which are out of scope in this discussion.

tuisginideach

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Absolutely nothing. The fact it exists is suspicious in itself.

A dated photo of a hand putting the letter into the postbox suggests the letter was posted into the postbox.

Pawwed Rig

tuisginideach wrote: »

A dated photo of a hand putting the letter into the postbox suggests the letter was posted into the postbox.

Sure but on what date?

choons

Can you upload or send the photo? Would love to check when it was taken out of curiosity

Cuddlesworth

GGTrek wrote: »

All the other methods suffer from serious drawbacks which are out of scope in this discussion.

What? Unless the witness is a independent body that sounds like crap. Registered post is the best proof that something was delivered and its a reasonable assumption that something was delivered.

And, most importantly, a month later they ask for confirmation of the delivery? Not the next day or week? Landlord will be ripped apart in the PRTB.

GGTrek

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

tuisginideach wrote: »

A dated photo of a hand putting the letter into the postbox suggests the letter was posted into the postbox.

Sure but on what date?

The date their witness will say. They have proof of the place they served. The witness will corroborate date.

GGTrek

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

GGTrek wrote: »

All the other methods suffer from serious drawbacks which are out of scope in this discussion.

What? Unless the witness is a independent body that sounds like crap. Registered post is the best proof that something was delivered and its a reasonable assumption that something was delivered.

And, most importantly, a month later they ask for confirmation of the delivery? Not the next day or week? Landlord will be ripped apart in the PRTB.

If the witness is and independent third party the RTB will not shred anything and the tenant will sit in a very difficult position. Check in the RTB Tribunals reports how REITs serve notices.

TheChizler

GGTrek wrote: »

The date their witness will say. They have proof of the place they served. The witness will corroborate date.

They have proof that some letter was outside the post box at some point. Nothing more.

syndrome777

GGTrek wrote: »

If the witness is and independent third party the RTB will not shred anything and the tenant will sit in a very difficult position. Check in the RTB Tribunals reports how REITs serve notices.

and that "witness" actually saw what was in the envelope. The whole thing makes no sense.

Registers post should be the normal way.

kirving

Almost every single phone on sale today can take a video. If they went to the effort of taking a photo of themselves outside the house, why not take a video?

Or a photo in the letter of the house showing the letter in the hall door?

Or an email? Or a phonecall follow up? Or perhaps registered post?!

Sounds very suspect to me. No reasonable person does that, and then only sends the photo after the fact.

GGTrek

Have you read the section of the act I posted? Do a section 6 search in the RTB Tribunals reports and you will see how hard it is to prove that you did not receive notice if the other party has witness.

Registered post is fine except for one major drawback: there is a small chance it can come back saying "not living at this address" if the tenant is really smart.

GGTrek

syndrome777 wrote: »

GGTrek wrote: »

If the witness is and independent third party the RTB will not shred anything and the tenant will sit in a very difficult position. Check in the RTB Tribunals reports how REITs serve notices.

and that "witness" actually saw what was in the envelope. The whole thing makes no sense.

Registers post should be the normal way.

Have you read section 6? It does not matter. If the witness says that an envelope was hand delivered to the address. It becomes the duty of the tenant to show the adjudicator what was the content of the envelope. If in addition the witness testifíes that he saw the content of the envelope before being closed and delivered then it is game over. Section 6 is very favourable to the party serving the notice. Many tenants do not understand this. A defense based on delivery is a difficult defense.

BBMcQ

newacc2015 wrote: »

I think it is quite funny the fact you say he should be happy with the rent and yet you acknowledge it probably doesnt even cover his mortgage... Who would be happy with the rent on a loss making property when you can increase the rent to reduce those losses? But the landlord, tries covers his losses like any other businessman he is suddenly greedy?

Didn't want to quote your entire soliquay so I snipped the above. I never said the rent was less than the mortgage. I said before the change in tenant, the landlord was happy with a good tenant paying below MV, so they need to go out and find another good tenant to offset the gap in the rent chargeable vs "market rent".

I have absolutely no sympathy for a Joe soap who took a punt in circa 2005 by taking a mortgage on a 2nd "investment property" and hoping the rent chargeable would pay the mortgage leaving him/her with a handy asset ever increasing in value. Many of these properties were bought by the "sure with property you can't lose" brigade.

For the record I'm far far from a socialist but I'm hugely frustrated by this so-called rental/property crisis which is nothing more than the generation born in the 50's strangling the country's young people just because they feel entitled by the luck of the DOB to wealth.