Tenant Questioning Rental Increase - Landlord Forum thread 362045

Tenant Questioning Rental Increase by Jason on June 8, 2022 @01:16

T recently received a letter stating that her rent would be increased from $885 to $910 per month, effective August 1, 2022, on a M2M lease.

I have had this T for a couple of years now, but the cost of everything is going up. Taxes, insurance, gas, lawncare --- everything. It would not break my heart if she decides to find housing elsewhere.

She received the letter and texted me this:
"Question does your raising of rent have to do with increased expenditures of our economy & inflation?"
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My initial reaction was 'Yes, the cost of water, sewer, insurance, taxes, lawncare have increased drastically and unfortunately, we are all in this together'. I think that is a good response - I just want to make sure that anything I response with is done so within the law.

I don't know how to respond to her and I want to make sure that I am covering my ass (legally) whenever I respond to her text message.

Her lease is M2M, the letter was sent out on 05.26.22 and the rent will not be increased until August 1, 2022.

I apologize for the novel, but I just wanted to ensure that my basis were covered.

TIA. -Jason

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Re: Tenant Questioning Rental Increase by Garry on June 8, 2022 @09:53	[ Reply ]

Jason, Your sentence to her looks good. But you may want to change the word "drastically" to " a lot ". You could add: " This is about a 3% increase, whereas inflation is running 2-3 times that, all over the country ". You're being generous. I'm increasing my rents 5-10% in that rental range.

Re: Tenant Questioning Rental Increase by Lpadave on June 8, 2022 @10:38	[ Reply ]

You're being very gracious. Most LLs are raising rents 10 to 25 percent over what they were a year ago And existing tenancies are still well under market. Check your market comps And be objective in comparing. Your tenant is stating the obvious. I don't think she's trying to start a fight,.....but ya never know. Twenty five dollars a month isn't much. It's not even coffee money.

Re: Tenant Questioning Rental Increase by Daniel (CA) on June 11, 2022 @01:02	[ Reply ]

I would stop texting with tenants as soon as possible. I made the following notice for this purpose. Please be aware that this notice is not fully lawyer approved yet... then I would respond by saying that the increase notice and statute doesnt require the LL to provide the information requested. Name Oops, Email etiquette? и Please refrain from including irrelevant or inappropriate information in your text messages or emails ЕЕЕЕЕЕin the following way: и ________________________________________________________ и ________________________________________________________ и ________________________________________________________ и Please refrain from contacting us through text messages or emails because netiquette has been violated ЕЕЕЕЕЕin the following way: и ________________________________________________________ и ________________________________________________________ и ________________________________________________________ Please abide by your lease and submit all future correspondence in writing to the address below. Please abide by our correspondence policy and submit all dealings in writing to the address below. Signature/Date Email and TEXT Message Disclaimer: To Tenant: 1. Please note that email and text messages are not accepted method of communicating with your landlord. 2. While the use of emails and text messages may be convenient and quick, and helped to expedite past interactions with the landlord, the use of emails and text messages present problems as well. 3. You are notified that responses to emails or text messages are not an accepted form of notification from Landlord; in addition, landlord may inadvertently or unintentionally skip text messages and emails. 4. A formal written letter to a landlord accomplishes many things. For one, it reaffirms the tenantТs reason for contacting the landlord. Second, it helps to give second thoughts to the writer about the necessity of a complaint or issue for contacting the landlord. Third, by making a hard print of a letter, the writer has an extra step to make sure the tone of a letter is appropriate to the tone desired. 5. Emails and text messages usually lack the proper tone of the communication desired and while leisure communications between friends can be disregarded; however, communications between customer and vendor canТt professionally disregard implied tones. Enforcement may be required once unlawful or unreasonable demands are expressed. 6. The use of emails and text messages between landlord and tenant should be limited to being short brief and concise. Such as Happy New Year, FYI rents late but is on its way, expect a letter in the mail, Help, the roof is leaking. 7. Finally, this disclaimer is only to inform current tenants of the idea and courteousness of the concept of netiquette in the digital communication age. Email Disclosure Based on the concept in these web pages: http://www.morebusiness.com/running_your_business/marketing/emailtone-mb.brc http://careerplanning.about.com/od/communication/a/email_tips.htm Signature/Date