Section 13 Notice
Rents are rising. Great! According to the Rentindex they are up over 2.5% over the last year.
In London rents have risen faster than the rest of the UK and were up 2.4% in 2014 according to the ONS index of private rents.
Landlords looking to increase their rents could well need a Section 13 Notice to enable them to increase legally the amount of rent charged under their tenancy.
What is a section 13 notice?
A Section 13 Notice refers to a notice under the Housing Act 1988 to propose a rent increase. The forms are sometimes referred to as “Landlord’s notice proposing a new rent under an Assured Periodic Tenancy of premises situated in England” or “Landlord’s notice proposing a new rent under an Assured Periodic Tenancy of premises situated in Wales.” (see below for details about getting your FREE section 13 notice.)
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The reality is that landlords don’t always need a Section 13 Notice when looking to increase their rent. This is because providing the tenant agrees the landlord can increase the rent at any stage. It is always best that the landlord obtains confirmation in writing of the tenant’s agreement to pay a higher rent in case there is a dispute over this at a later date.
Where this agreement is not forthcoming then a landlord may require the use of a Section 13 Notice depending on the type of tenancy in place.
To find out whether a Section 13 Notice is required to increase their rent landlords should read this recent article about ‘raising the rent’.
How do landlords obtain a FREE section 13 notice?
Landlords that are registered users of Property Hawk can download a Section 13 Notice for FREE.
The FREE SECTION 13 NOTICE is available within Property Hawk’s free property management software as one of a selection of FREE letting forms required by landlords.
This includes a free tenancy agreement.
There are a number of other websites that offer free tenancy agreements and forms. However, some of these websites may not have used a legally trained lettings expert to have prepared them.
The significant advantage of using the PM2.0, free property management software over blank downloadable forms is that the letting software automatically fills in the Section 13 Notice with all the relevant details. It can then be viewed as a PDF and printed off. The form remains stored on the landlord’s account to be viewed or reprinted.
When it comes to re-letting their buy-to-let property to a subsequent tenant, a landlord just needs to create a new tenancy, a process that takes a couple of seconds. A new tenancy agreement can then be generated and a landlord is then able to print off with a new set of prescribed information (Section 213 Notice).
Once a landlord has signed up to Property Hawk their basic details are then stored automatically by the PM2.0 property management software, and can be used to pre-populate a whole range of other forms needed by a landlord to manage their lettings business. These include:
Tenancy agreement
Section 213 notice (required by the DPS)
Section 13 notice
Property inventory
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