UK Landlord Forum / Life

I am a private landlord with a tenant who is on UC and claims LHA.
As LHA has been frozen for 4 years, I have not increased his rent. However, rising costs for me and the fact that LHA has now increased means that I must look at this again.
I do not want my tenant to lose out - he is a good tenant and I do not wish him to lose any of his money at all.
Currently his rent is £500 a month and he gets £450 LHA. So he has to add £50 a month from his basic UC.
I see that the LHA (in his category) for our area has now increased to £575 a month.
If I were to increase his rent to £575, would the LHA then automatically cover all of this? If so, he would be better off as he would no longer need to add the £50 a month from his basic UC.
Any comments please?

Why does it matter?

I don't mean to sound facetious, I'm serious... you raise the rent and the Tenant works through the hurdles and vagaries of The System. How it all might happen should be of little interest to you - as a Landlord in the PRS the last thing you want to be doing is understanding how LHA, UC and all the other stuff works (or doesn't). You've already gone about this badly by subsidising the rent for the four years where LHA rates didn't increase (I'm just quoting you here, I have no knowledge if they did or didn't).

£500 to £575 is very close (in my eyes) to an unreasonable rent increase... 15%... and demonstrates why you would have been better doing 3%, 3%, 3% etc. over the years. It's just better for everyone. You have tried to help, but you really haven't. You've created a situation. If you'd imposed modest, regular increases... more money would have been in your pocket, expectations would have been set with all parties, and there'd be no need for a 15% increase to be explained-away.

You've engaged in mismanagement.

QuoteWhy does it matter?

I don't mean to sound facetious, I'm serious... you raise the rent and the Tenant works through the hurdles and vagaries of The System. How it all might happen should be of little interest to you - as a Landlord in the PRS the last thing you want to be doing is understanding how LHA, UC and all the other stuff works (or doesn't). You've already gone about this badly by subsidising the rent for the four years where LHA rates didn't increase (I'm just quoting you here, I have no knowledge if they did or didn't).

£500 to £575 is very close (in my eyes) to an unreasonable rent increase... 15%... and demonstrates why you would have been better doing 3%, 3%, 3% etc. over the years. It's just better for everyone. You have tried to help, but you really haven't. You've created a situation. If you'd imposed modest, regular increases... more money would have been in your pocket, expectations would have been set with all parties, and there'd be no need for a 15% increase to be explained-away.

You've engaged in mismanagement.

That isn't how I see it. People are struggling to pay rents etc and if I can understand how UC, LHA etc work, then I can work with the tenants to get the best outcomes for them and myself. I am not in the business of shafting tenants and I will only increase the rent if i believe they can afford it. There really is no point in making life miserable for the tenants. So whilst I appreciate you replying, my MO is clearly different to yours. As far as I can see, i have had a very good tenant for 7 years, no trouble whatsoever and rent always paid on time. The flat is clean and tidy and he looks after it well. So i guess the proof is in the pudding.

How you manage your property is your affair, but for most this would put them at risk because it does not account for a new boiler, a new roof or whatever surprise is waiting down the road.  This especially applied to interest rates, many are having to sell or losing money because they can't remortgage.

The LHA rate is the 30th percentile of rents in the area, not the market rent.  You can work out the market rent by using Zoopla and Right Move, both Landlords and Tenants can use current properties to say whatever they want to say.  If they do a good job it makes it very easy for the Tribunal to make a quick decision.

If your property is in the lowest percentile then maybe use the increase in rent to improve it for the Tenant.

The Council may give advice to the Tenant to have the increase referred to the FTT, the Tribunal will take into consideration how long it has been since the rent was last increased.

Over two years benefits have increased by 19% to take account of inflation and the cost of living crisis, this does not go far because although inflation is now lower, food and energy prices are still between 55% and 120% higher, in fact they are going up again right now, so maybe the £50 extra you are giving the Tenant will be appreciated.

However, the boiler could pack up tomorrow and you could end up spending thousands.

As for what happens, the Tenant will provide evidence of the rent increase to the Council, they will pay it on the usual schedule in due course.  They may advise the Tenant to refer it and not to pay the increased rent until it has been determined. If the Tenant pays the new rent they can't take it to the Tribunal.

If the Tribunal accept it then a lump sum will be payable because of the arrears and the Tenant will be paid that by the Council. 

When people give you advice on here it is not personal, they are warning others not to do what you are doing because of the risks.

One day you may be forced to evict this Tenant because of a change in your family dynamics, care home fees are often a ball breaker for example.  Even the most wonderful Tenant is going to be upset to lose their home, they feel wronged and they have to face the market rents which could be double.  The Council will tell them they have to move to a smaller place or a cheaper town, they have a duty to not allow Tenants to move into a property where it is not affordable.

Then the Tenant is told by the Council that the Landlord did not protect their deposit and that they may claim between 1x and 3x the deposit per Tenancy.  I have seen cases of £30,000 claimed, the legal fees were £8.5k and would be another £8k to appeal.

I have known Tenants who refused to be a party to joint claims but they are few and far between, when someone is facing eviction and their world is being turned upside down then there is no loyalty.  In fact the longer a Tenant stays the more they realise they paid your mortgage.  One even said to me that they had paid £1000 a month for 11 years, the property was purchased for £138k and sold for £350k, so they had basically paid for the house.  As it happened they lost their job, LHA was paid at the 3 bed rate because they did not need 4 bedrooms and the LHA for that was £600.  It took a 2 years to get them out after allowing them to get into arrears, which ended up at £7k and £5k of legal fees.  The Landlord got their CCJ and escalated it for High Court Enforcement.  It took several years for them to find the Tenant, the family broke up and they went their separate ways.  The the HCEO got nothing.

The point is that there was no buffer, now some will see this as a cost of doing business, others seem to expect the Tenant to fund everything.  I guess the answer is somewhere in between.

Quote from: ikcdab on May 11, 2024, 07:23:10 AMThat isn't how I see it. People are struggling to pay rents etc and if I can understand how UC, LHA etc work, then I can work with the tenants to get the best outcomes for them and myself. I am not in the business of shafting tenants and I will only increase the rent if i believe they can afford it. There really is no point in making life miserable for the tenants. So whilst I appreciate you replying, my MO is clearly different to yours. As far as I can see, i have had a very good tenant for 7 years, no trouble whatsoever and rent always paid on time. The flat is clean and tidy and he looks after it well. So i guess the proof is in the pudding.

I don't think you know enough to presume about my particular MO. You might be surprised. Over many years I've come to the considered and sound conclusion that raising rents regularly and modestly actually helps Tenants. What you've have been doing is creating (or at least aiding and abetting) a housing trap. No doubt about it.

As a real example, I had a tenancy commence in 2014 at £550... in 2024 they're now paying £730... that's an increase of £180 over a period very close to ten years. None of that broke the bank, it was never challenged, and it allowed them to understand the price of everything increases (including their current and the, as now theoretical, next home) and gave me the means of doing every bit of maintenance properly.

I shall re-iterate this point - as you obviously don't believe it (even though I'm the 'expert', and you're not) - you're engaging in mismanagement and it's you who is now scrabbling-around for an unjustifiable (shaft-worthy?) rent increase. So it may not be quite how you see it, but it is - transparently - how it is.

Hi if tenant only get one bedroom allowance £393 per month, and lives in 2bed house and can not afford to pay two bed full rent, can the 2nd bedroom be occupied by the landlord

If the person is a tenant, the landlord can't usually move in - that's a criminal offence. Could you try rephrasing your question ignoring the LHA element.