Rent Increase Laws: What Landlords Can (and Cannot) Do

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Rent increases are never, ever fun. Every year, I hold my breath when it’s time to renew my lease, in the hopes that the hike is still within my housing budget. Sure, it may be easier than ever to find homes for rent online, but I love where I live, and would like to stay there as long as I can.

Fortunately, my landlords have always played fair. But let’s be frank—some don’t. And when that happens, it leaves many tenants wondering: What are the rules on raising rent, anyway?

Read on for answers to the questions that keep renters up at night.

How often can landlords raise rent?

Landlords can’t just raise your rent whenever they feel like it; they have to wait until whatever contract you’ve signed with them expires, says Robert Pellegrini, president of PK Boston, a real estate and collections law firm with offices in the Greater Boston area. That means that if you have a lease, they can’t raise it until the lease term expires.

For example, if you’ve signed a one-year contract, it’ll be a year before rent can go up, or two years if you’ve signed a two-year lease (which is why signing a lease for two years or longer is wise, to keep the rent down).

Meanwhile, if you’re renting month-to-month, your rent can’t increase until the end of any given month. Simple rules. But real rules.

How much notice should renters receive of rent increases?

In most states, renters must be granted at least 30 days’ notice before a rent increase is enforced, although that can vary based on how much the rent will actually go up. In California, for instance, that advance notice expands to 60 days if the increase is more than 10% of the rent.

These rules are also typically true for a “tenant at will” (i.e., you do not have a lease) and, more surprisingly, a tenant in a rooming house, where you are likely to pay rent weekly.

“In this case, one would assume that seven days’ notice would suffice. Not the case!” says Pellegrini. “Tenants in rooming houses still require 30 days’ notice for a rent increase.”

No matter how strange your leasing terms may seem, or how unorthodox your housing situation, you may be surprised when it comes to your rights concerning rent increases.

How much can landlords legally increase what renters pay?

As unfortunate as it may be, rent increases are common, and many tenants expect some kind of increase every time their lease comes up. Still, some renters might find it hard to believe just how much the price of their housing goes up every year.

“When it comes to how much a landlord can raise rent, anything flies,” says Pellegrini. “There are no rules, and it’s totally at their discretion.” Except, of course, if you’re living in a rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartment, in which case there are strict government provisions in place governing how much rent can be raised (or if it can be increased at all).

Finding one of these rent-controlled apartments is something like locating the holy grail. So, if you don’t know if you have a rent-controlled apartment, the chances are you do not.

If that’s the case, you, your lease, and your wallet are mostly at the mercy of your landlord and the rental market in your area. However, there are some exceptions to what your landlord can do, for example: raise the rent to punish a renter.

“If it looked to a judge like the landlord was raising rent punitively—say, for example, to get ‘payback’ for the tenant contacting the Board of Health for a health code violation—then this is not OK, and the landlord could be found guilty and made to pay as much as triple damages and court costs,” says Pellegrini.

In this case, it’s not about your rental agreement, the length of your lease, or even a housing market increase in your area. It’s about what is legal and illegal. If you think you may be a victim of a punitive rent increase, contact a lawyer.

Can a landlord raise rent retroactively?

The short answer is no. In most cases, if a landlord has slapped a tenant with a retroactive rent increase, he was negligent in letting the tenant know about the increase at the appropriate time. The renter can’t be held responsible for a rent increase he or she genuinely didn’t know about.

“Often, a landlord provides notice of the increased rent retroactively together, to try to bully renters out, knowing that the tenant might be overwhelmed due to the ‘back rent’ and would be more likely to vacate,” says Pellegrini.

If this is the case for you, be aware that a tenant can file suit against a landlord, or simply counterclaim if an eviction has already been initiated by the landlord.

What should renters do if they think their landlord illegally raised the rent?

So, now that you know a bit more about rent increases: What if you’re realizing that your rent may have been increased illegally?

Maybe your rent was increased illegally on a rent-controlled apartment. Or, perhaps you’re looking through your rental agreement and realizing that you weren’t due for an increase.

There are things you can do to protect yourself from an illegal rent increase.

“A tenant should keep track of every correspondence they receive,” says Pellegrini. “They should also take notes when communication is verbal, and keep track of the dates of each communication.” This is especially important when trying to prove harassment (to pay rent or otherwise).

But don’t assume that your landlord is automatically the bad guy.

“In my opinion, the vast majority of landlords do the right thing, and, out of the slim percentage that do not, they aren’t even aware that they did something incorrectly,” says Pellegrini.

“So, in all but a few cases, I’d highly recommend that the tenant communicate with the landlord first if something doesn’t seem right. If the tenant ends up in court, or starts things off in a threatening way, they should remember that the landlord owns the property. And, if the landlord finds the tenant to be difficult to work with, the landlord is entitled to allow the tenancy to expire and find a new tenant.”

So, you should yourself (and your money) from an unfair increase, but don’t go so far as to threaten your landlord and put your housing situation at risk. Remember that your landlord could have made an honest mistake.

It’s also possible that you could have miscalculated an increase along the way. If you come on too strong to correct the situation, you could potentially end up facing eviction.

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Watch: Is It Smarter to Rent or Buy?

The post Rent Increase Laws: What Landlords Can (and Cannot) Do appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

Source: realtor.com

Zillow study illustrates home value disparity between races

Typical values for Black and Latinx-owned homes still lag behind overall U.S. home values, but the gap is narrowing.

A new Zillow analysis shows homes owned by Black and Latinx households are worth 16.2% and 10.2% less, respectively, than the typical U.S. home. Homes owned by non-Hispanic white and Asian families, meanwhile, have typical values 2.9% and 3.7% higher than the typical U.S. home.

While inequity in home values continues to persist, the data show them steadily, albeit slowly, converging. Since homeownership is the single largest driver of wealth for many households, the value and appreciation of a home is extremely impactful for families.

Before the Great Recession, the gap between Black-owned home values and all home values was about 15%, but grew to 20% by March 2014. Similarly, Latinx-owned homes saw the largest home value gap in May 2012 at 14% — 2 percentage points larger than before the housing bubble. Now, nearly a decade later, home values for Black- and Latinx-owned homes are back at pre-bubble levels, and continue to narrow despite the current economic crisis.

One reason for the wide gap is that the housing bust hit communities of color especially hard. Subprime loans were targeted to take advantage of the most vulnerable communities, and the ensuing wave of foreclosures hurt homeownership and home values disproportionately for Black and Latinx homeowners. Fast forward 12 years, and homeownership rates and home values are still recovering for these communities. While home value growth turned positive for U.S. homes in August 2012, it took an additional two years for Black and Latinx homes to see this same growth.

“It has taken nearly a decade for the home value gap to return to pre-recession levels, but still, the gap remains very large,” says Zillow economist Treh Manhertz. “With Black and brown communities and jobs hit disproportionately hard in the pandemic, there has been reason to worry another dip may be on the horizon that could slow or stop the progress. However, this is not the case, as the same factors that widened the gap in the Great Recession are not surfacing this time. Thanks to rock bottom rates on the most secure mortgages, extended forbearance programs, and rising home prices, there are no signs of another widening of the gap coming this year. However, through these turbulent times, continued vigilance and targeted intervention by policymakers is crucial to keep the progress going for communities of color.”

Home value inequality varies greatly in different states and metropolitan areas. Large metros with the smallest spread between Black-owned home values are Riverside (1% value gap), San Antonio (3%), Las Vegas (3%), and Portland (4%). Among the most unequal are Detroit (46% value gap), Buffalo (43%) Birmingham (43%), St. Louis (41%), and Milwaukee (40%).

Black homeownership rates are also on the rise since the Great Recession, despite challenges for Black homebuyers to secure a mortgage. Telework has the ability to expand the opportunity for homeownership even further for Black and Latinx renters, providing the flexibility to own a home in a less-expensive area.

The post Zillow study illustrates home value disparity between races appeared first on RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News.

Source: realtybiznews.com

New Report Reveals Massive Shifts in Tenant

A recent study by Zumper, an online rental marketplace, reveals massive shifts in renter behavior and historic market changes for renting in 2020.

The company’s “State of the American Renter” report for 2020 was based on surveys of more than 14,000 Americans conducted between June 2020 and August 2020. It demonstrates how the coronavirus pandemic is altering renter behavior and reversing rental market trends. Key findings include:

  • Renters are moving back in with mom and dad. Nearly 50% more renters are moving back in with their parents, with Millennials moving most often.
  • The majority of renters are under financial stress, with tenant unemployment at 12.7%.
  • Renters are moving more than ever before. A quarter reported moving to a new city within the past year, up 33% from 2019.
  • Renters are abandoning expensive cities in favor of cheaper, often neighboring, markets. For example, Bay Area residents are moving to Sacramento.
  • The country’s priciest cities are seeing the sharpest rent declines. The median rents in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Oakland, San Jose, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Seattle declined 15% from the start of 2020.

The post New Report Reveals Massive Shifts in Tenant first appeared on Century 21®.

Source: century21.com

Which States Have the Lowest Cost of Living for Renters

Is one of your goals this year to finally get your budget under control? You have plenty of company. After all, that’s one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions! One way you can achieve your goal is to start with a plan for budgeting for your first apartment. Another cost-cutting hack is to move […]

The post Which States Have the Lowest Cost of Living for Renters appeared first on Apartment Life.

Source: blog.apartmentsearch.com