Rent for Lease Renewal Higher Than Advertised Price

[RentGirl]

My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Virginia

The end of my current lease term is almost up and the property manager for my rental community sent my lease renewal notice last week. The notice gave me the option to renew my lease for another year at my current rent rate of $2000/month. However, the rental range as advertised on my landlord's website is currently $1869-1894/month. When I asked the property manager why I was being offered to renew at a rate that is higher than the advertised rates for my floorplan he replied that it was because 1) my rent rate was not being increased from what I currently pay and 2) the rates advertised on the site may change.

I understand that the rates on the site may change, but if the current advertised rates are lower than what I'm currently paying, shouldn't the lease renewal rate be within that range. Even if I had to pay the highest price in the range ($1894), at least it's what's being advertised. The property manager even admitted that if a new tenant came in off the street they'd be offered the same floorplan (and possibly my exact unit) at a rate that's lower than the rate at which they're offering me to renew.

Any thoughts? I know this isn't fair, but is there any legal arguments I can raise?

[SChinFChin]

My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Virginia

The end of my current lease term is almost up and the property manager for my rental community sent my lease renewal notice last week. The notice gave me the option to renew my lease for another year at my current rent rate of $2000/month. However, the rental range as advertised on my landlord's website is currently $1869-1894/month. When I asked the property manager why I was being offered to renew at a rate that is higher than the advertised rates for my floorplan he replied that it was because 1) my rent rate was not being increased from what I currently pay and 2) the rates advertised on the site may change.

I understand that the rates on the site may change, but if the current advertised rates are lower than what I'm currently paying, shouldn't the lease renewal rate be within that range. Even if I had to pay the highest price in the range ($1894), at least it's what's being advertised. The property manager even admitted that if a new tenant came in off the street they'd be offered the same floorplan (and possibly my exact unit) at a rate that's lower than the rate at which they're offering me to renew.

Any thoughts? I know this isn't fair, but is there any legal arguments I can raise?

I'm a LL, and from my vantage point, there's two side to this issue. There is a legal side, and a business side.

From the legal side, unless there is rent control, they are free to ask for any rent they want, they can ask $500/month for a $2,000/month apartment, or $3,000/month for it. The tenant can choose to pay, or choose to move.

You cannot make him charge you $1,869/month. You can simply tell him that you are going to move.

If you do that, you would incur moving expenses, and he would have to re-rent the place, paint clean, and suffer a vacancy. From the business standpoint, it's lose-lose for the both of you. So it's an issue of whether it's more painful for you to move, or costly for him to re-rent.

Whether it's fair or not does not come into the equation.

How are rents arrived at?? There are many factors, and I'll tell you mine. I take a look at what the market rents are, often I reduce it, especially when I'm busy, I can't get the place up to tip top shape, so I might go ask $1,850 for a $2,000 apartment. I once did it because I had to go away on a trip, and I wanted to get the place rented quickly beforehand.

Under the circumstances, do I have a duty to reduce the rent for my current tenants on lease renewal because I had to go on a trip a few months ago, and let it go cheap?? Defintely not, not if I have to reduce rents for everyone in the building.

Often though, as a reward to my current tenants, I don't raise the rents but I rent out newly vacant apartments closer to the current rents. A friend of mine, another landlord had trouble with a new tenant because of that.

He rented the place out for around $1,000/month, and most of the tenants of several years were around $900 or so, as rents have escalated. The new tenant demanded he either pays the same rent as the other tenants, or, he'd be happy if the rent for the others are raised.

I told my friend that this is NOT the Soviet Union, and there is no constitutional requirement that rents for every apartment in the place is the same. He told me the story because his new tenant was so upset that the guy left the windows open in the middle of the winter, and left the hot water running after he gone to work, so no-one in the building would have hot water when they come home.

In your case, it may be true that rents used to be $2,000 and it dropped. In my case, because I don't want to get into arguments or set a precedent on tenants telling me how much to charge, on a few occasions when tenants tell me how much I ought to charge, I tell them that maybe they should move.

Once, a tenant did tell me he was moving, upset the guy downstairs paid less, I was raising his a bit, so he spent three months searching, then came back to renew his lease. Reason is his rent was under market, but the the guy downstairs from him was wayyyy under market.

I told this guy that if I choose to charge wayyyy under market, it's my business and none of his. I could've refused to renew the lease, but at the time, I was too lazy to look for another tenant.

Again, a business decision.

My suggestion is to tell the landlord you might have to move, and see what happens. You can say something like "they cut my bonus at work, (or some other excuse) so a $1,800 apartment would work better for me now, but this being a nice place, I'll go $1,850 so it'll save you the trouble of re-renting the place".

If someone said that to me, my answer would probaly be "lets try $1,850 for a year, but it'll have to go back to $2,000 after that".

Oh, on the tenant who chose to move?? I might have kept the rent the same if he asked nicer, not make a big scene out of it. But being nasty about it didn't exactly worked with me, especially, when I worked hard to invest my money in my building.