When it comes to subreddits posts in which rent is the topic (news, politics, and even fun posts), I’ve seen comments from Americans in which they state their landlords increased rent cost from 500 USD and up.
For me that sounds quite ridiculous and unregulated.
My main question is?
**How can this be?**
Related questions would be:
– Is this because rent is usually verbally agreed rather than written?
– Can this be made without legal implications?
– Is it because rent contracts are what some Americans call Standard Form Contract (or Leonine contract)?
23 comments
1) Contracts end, usually after six or twelve months. During the contract, they can’t. After it, it’s completely legal as long as there isn’t rent control by law.
2) If it’s when the contract ends and there’s no rent control, yes.
Usually what they mean is that their rent was raised when their lease was up. When you sign a lease the rent is agreed upon for the period of time that the lease is valid. Once the lease is up a landlord can raise the rent to whatever they want and you can either sign a new lease or leave.
>increased rent cost from 500 USD and up.
Thats the market in many places people want to live.
>For me that sounds quite ridiculous and unregulated.
K?
>My main question is?
>
>**How can this be?**
Whats the question? Supply and demand.
>Related questions would be:
>
>- Is this because rent is usually verbally agreed rather than written?
No. It is almost always written.
>- Can this be made without legal implications?
Once the contract is up you no longer have a written agreement.
>- Is it because rent contracts are what some Americans call Standard Form Contract (or Leonine contract)?
No. Its because thats how contracts work in every country in the world.
As with many things legal, it entierly depends on where you live. Some places have rent control and others don’t.
If you have a lease, your landlord can only increase rent as put forth in the lease, but if the lease doesn’t automatically renew then they can increase it however much they want (barring state/local restrictions) if you decide to sign a new lease.
Many people are on a month-month lease which means that the landlord could potentially increase the rent each month.
Rental contracts should always be written. Some people don’t have written agreements but that usually happens when the leasing is illegal (some subleases are illegal) or when the owner can’t be assed to figure out all the laws and just wants to rent something.
Generally, rent can be increased whenever unless there are state and local laws that prevent it.
Most contracts are standard forms (I had to look up Standard Form Contract/Leonine Contract), but I’d say that’s typical of the modern world and anything that has become a comoddity. If you don’t like the contract, they don’t need to change it because they can just find another tennant.
Leases generally run 12 months, though they can run longer or shorter. After the contract ends, that’s a new contract and the current tenant and sign it, refuse it, or negotiate.
I don’t know what a standard form or leonine contract is.
Some cities or states may have any number of regulations on rentals, prices, etc… Indiana, and many others, have almost none.
While under contract that states otherwise? No, not anywhere.
Some states/cities have rent control laws, but this isn’t and shouldn’t be a federal issue.
Yes. If you have a lease the your landlord can raise your rent for your next rental year by whatever they want. But that’s only when your lease ends. Same goes if you’re just month-to-month.
You’re seeing a lot of rent increases because during the pandemic some landlords offered discounts to tenants to keep them. But now that things are returning to normal landlords are raising prices by horrible amounts.
It’s all terrible and is just making housing all the more unaffordable for your average person.
Unless there is regulation in place, it’s legal. A few states have limits on rent increases, and New York City is the only place that still really has a rent control program because it’s so flawed.
You only pay an increase in rent upon your renewal so you’re signing a new contract for a new price: they can’t just say “lol now you’re paying us $500 more a month” (generally speaking).
The key phrase here is “lease,” which is the contract in which two parties agree for one to rent a property to the other for an amount specified in the contract and the other to pay that amount to rent the property. These typically have a set span of time and a penalty if a party wants to sever the relationship before the span is over. A new lease can have a new price.
If you hear about someone buying a lease, it means he bought the right to rent a property from the current renter. This is typically only done with retail properties and frequently buying the entire business/practice.
Yeah, provided your contract is up and there isn’t rent control in your area. Your rent is an agreement between you and your landlord. Once that agreement ends you have to negotiate a new contract.
It varies state to state, but in most cases you sign a contract for X number of months at $XXXX dollars per month. Once that contract expires you sign a new one at an agreed upon rate, or move out.
A few places have rent control but it’s not very common. And I know in some places a landlord can raise rent mid contract given “proper notice” but I don’t know how common that is.
When you rent a place, you sign a lease. This lease guarantees, among other things, the duration of the stay and the amount of rent due each month. The landlord can not change that for the period of the lease, but he can altar the next lease to include things like more rent.
People complaining about the rent increase are doing so because their lease is coming to an end and the new lease has more rent. It’s not landlords arbitrarily jacking up the rent in the middle of a lease.
It depends *a lot* on the specific location. Some places in the US have *very* strict regulations. As one example, when I was a landlord it would have been very illegal to rise my rents more than 2% per year.
It’s part of the reason I got out of that business. If I can’t raise rent more than 2%, and my costs to keep the place nice have gone up 15%? That difference is coming straight out of my own pocket.
To answer your other questions, as best I can:
* Leases are almost *always* put in writing. If you’ve got a landlord who isn’t willing to write things down, that’s a big red flag, right up front.
* Pretty sure there are some legal implications, but I’m not a lawyer so I can’t speak to that.
* As for the type of contract? Really depends. A lot of landlords use “Standard Form” contracts because they aren’t lawyers, and are just doing their best to protect their property.
Before I got better at the job I just straight-up copy/pasted the best looking contract template I could find on the internet. I got better at it later and learned to write my own.
Yes, in most locations there are no regulations on rent/rent increases. So a landlord can raise rents however much they want, when the lease is up for renewal. Of course, if they raise it too much then the tenant will leave and try will have to make the effort to fill the vacancy.
Rent increases have jumped a lot recently for a couple reasons: there were big rent reduction deals during COVID (many single people moved back home to avoid loneliness/could work remotely) and those are being removed, and rents are raising as they usually do annually, plus expenses for landlords are increasing — energy/utility costs, labor costs, parts/maintenance, etc. so remove a 10% discount, raise rents 5% from normal rate, 5% due to inflation and you’re at 20% increase.
Those people are likely referring to their current lease (a contract between a landlord and a renter) expiring and the landlord is asking for more money during negotiating a new lease.
Prices right now are going up for a variety of reasons:
1. Inflation means landlords need to increase costs to manage up keep and ensure their profits don’t decrease.
2. Many part of the US have had eviction moratoriums due to Covid so non-paying tenants cannot legally be evicted and some landlords are raising their costs so their paying tenants help to offset the money lost from tenants that cannot be evicted
As a general matter, landlords can do whatever the lease permits them to. If a lease sets a rent amount for a term of 12 months, then after those 12 months, they can offer renewal on whatever basis they want. They generally can’t increase the rent *during* the term of a lease, if that’s what you’re asking, but once a lease has expired and the question is renewal, then yes, they can propose new terms that may include a rent increase.
That being said, some states and cities here do have more regulated markets. New York City, for example, has rent regulation laws applicable to some apartments that does put a cap on permissible rent increases.
First, it is important to understand that laws on the ability of landlords to increase rent on residential properties varies from place to place. There are variations between not only states, but often between cities and counties within states.
Basically, the answer is that a landlord can charge whatever they would like for a tenant who is not already on a lease. Many local governments pass laws which require developers to designate at least a certain percentage of the properties they build as “affordable housing” but I am not sure of what that actually means in practice.
There are some big cities which have rent control laws. These laws limit the ability of landlords to raise rental rates for existing tenants, but usually they do not apply to new tenants once old ones move or die; at that point, landlords can generally charge what the market will bear.
* **Is this because rent is usually verbally agreed rather than written?** No, most leases (rental contracts) are written and specify the monthly rent the tenant owes. During the time period covered by the lease, the landlord cannot increase the tenant’s rent; the tenant’s rent will be whatever is specified in the lease.
* **Can this be made without legal implications?** In cities without rent control laws, the answer is basically “yes.” In cities without rent control laws, there are a lot of rules around raising rental rates.
* **Is it because rent contracts are what some Americans call Standard Form Contract (or Leonine contract)?** In the United States we would normally call a standard form contract which contains terms the parties do not actually bargain over a “boilerplate” contract. This doesn’t really have anything to do with why rental rates are so high or why they can increase a lot.
If there’s no rent control, they can increase to their heart’s content. However, the market being what it is, will act as, in theory, a regulator for rent rises. In the sense, that there is more than one landlord in the market and I, as a tenent, can move at any time I wish.
Rent is generally increased when the lease is up. The maximum duration of a rental lease here is usually one year (not by law or anything, it’s just the standard), which means that landlords can generally increase rent yearly if they choose to.
Generally a landlord is free to set the rent at whatever when your lease is up for renewal, but some states and cities have a limit on how much rent can increase during renewals
Can you cite your sources on that first purported reason? Because the vast majority of rental contracts must, by law, be in writing. The Statute Of Frauds requires that any contract that cannot be completed in less than one year (like, for instance, a one-year lease) be in writing.
Landlords can increase the rent after the lease has expired but to do so unfairly would result in the landlord losing tenants to the competition.
It depends. Different places have different laws.
Larger cities will often have ‘rent control’ meaning it can only go up a specific percentage maximum per year.