Rent Increase Notice With Editable Templates

What is a notice to increase rent?

Personalize A Simple Rent Increase Notice

A rent increase notice is a formal letter written by the landlord to inform tenants of an upcoming increase in rent. After receiving the notice, tenants have the option to accept, negotiate or reject it, and potentially send a notice to vacate. It is important for landlords to know and comply with the state's notice period requirements before sending the rent increase notice.

Note

We can only use this letter to raise the rent if the existing lease agreement allows or for a 🔗month-to-month rental agreement.

How to legally increase rent and get an acceptance?

Define the new rent

After figuring out the reasons for increasing rent, it is important to investigate the local housing market, because you have to obtain a proper valuation of your rent. If you go above the local average market price, you might risk losing your tenants. You can use the platforms listed below to gain an idea of the price range:

• 🔗Zillow platform - You can check the price directly on the map for your comparison.
• 🔗Rentometer tool - An excellent tool where you can measure the newly increased rental amount against the prices of other properties. You just enter the property's location and request further information to ensure the new rent can be competitive.

Review the current lease or rental contract

It is always a promising idea to review the terms and conditions of your rental contract to ensure you are able to increase rent in an appropriate manner. This includes checking when the lease expires and the notice period required to amend the agreement, among other crucial details.

Check The State’s Notice Period

After you have decided to go ahead with the rental increment, you may ask yourself: "How many days’ notice do I need to give before I increase the rent?" To answer this question, we created a table summarizing the notice periods of each state below. Though the most common period to issue a notice is 30 days, some states have different conditions:

Note

For further information on state law, check out this link from🔗 Nolo.com, a reliable website for legal helps.

Rent increase notice Editable templates

Remember that you can save time and use our editable documents tool to simplify the process. The entire process is just three (3) simple steps as follows:

1. Simply choose the appropriate rent increase notice template for your case.
2. Fill out our easy questionnaire with your information.
3. Review and edit the letter if necessary before downloading it.

Notice Of Rent Increase Template

With this template, you can clearly outline your reasons for the rent increase and set a deadline for your tenant's response. Additionally, If the tenant does not agree to the increase, you can also specify the date of the expiration of the month-to-month rental contract or the lease so that they can have enough time to look for another property to move to. Just ensure that you comply with your state's notice requirements.

Create Your Letter

How to Write the Rent Increase letter

A simple notice of rent increase letter will include the following fundamental details:

• Tenant's information: full name of the person currently renting the unit.
• Landlord: full name of the owner's property.
• Current Date: the Date the letter was written on.
• Premises: the full address of the rental property.
• Current rent: the rent amount the tenant has been paying the landlord.
• New Rent: the increased amount of rent the landlord requires.
• Effective Date: when the tenant must commence paying the new amount of rent.
• Mention consequences for nonpayment.

When should the landlord send a notice of rent increase?

As we mentioned, there are many reasons that can affect the increase in the rent. Here we compile a list of common reasons in general for your reference:

• An increase in state and local property taxes. Check out this article to see 🔗 how state and local property taxes work.
• An increase in utility bills and maintenance.
• An increase in the rate of home insurance. Here are 🔗 factors that impact the cost of homeowner insurance.
• Rising inflation. Check the chart of inflation rates provided by 🔗 The World Bank in the U.S.
• Increase in the costs of living.
• Upgrades to the property by means of renovation increase the market value of the property. This in turn will result in an increase to the rental.

Recommended tips

It is always highly suggested to be straightforward to tell the causality for raising your tenants' rent. Given understandable reasons will be more likely accepted by the good tenants.

When can the landlord nOT increase the rent? 

On the contrary, there are also some circumstances where the landlord cannot raise the rent. It can be deemed as a contract violation if the landlord does one of the following:

• When the🔗 lease agreement has not expired or not yet the end of the month of the monthly rental contract.
• The landlord did not follow the state and housing local laws to give the proper notice period.
• The landlord tries to remove the tenant by increasing the rent. 
• The landlord raises the rent amount over the local laws on rent control or rent stabilization.
• The owner retaliates against the 🔗tenant's requests for repairs at the unit, or the tenant has reported a housing code breach and the owner wants the tenant gone.
• The landlord is biased based on the tenant's gender, nationality, or religion.

Should there be any financial issues from the tenants, the landlord should make sure that all legal procedures are followed as opposed to just increasing the rent to handle the issues.

How do we deliver this notice?

After completing the letter, it is essential to send it via certified mail with a return receipt. Keeping in mind that all receipts should be kept for record keeping purposes by both the landlord and the tenants, should the landlord or tenant make argumentative statements. This ensures that the tenant does not only receive the notice and is aware of the rent increase but provides landlords with necessary proof should the tenant deny receiving any notice. 

Additionally, emailing a copy of the letter can be an excellent way to stay connected with your tenants. If you live close to the property or in the same building, you can personally deliver a hard copy of the notice, giving you the opportunity to verbally explain the increase.

After receiving the notice, the tenant has the choice to either accept the new rent amount, negotiate the rental amount, or move out and find another place.