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Help needed immidetly
Needed advice:
we were renting an apartment near avenue louse from last five years....we were paying charges 150Euros per month for Electricity,Gas and water.
All off sudden my landlord send us a mail on 27th october saying that our Electricity ,Gas and water charges from last 5 years were insufficent..All of sudden he is asking us to pay 125 euros extra for what we have paid, by this October end ie... ( already paid150)+125 x60 months.As per our agreement we have to check about all these charges yearly ,but the landlord haven't intimated us at end of year,so we thought that what we were paying for the charges were sufficient.if he would have been dicused the same after every year we would think of vacating the apartment.And from last year ie...from jan 2014 he is increasing rent of 68 euros now he is asking us to pay
120Ex60
68x10 months
what i know is every landlord will have to intimate abt the increase of rent before 2 moths or atleast one month so that we can decide to be in that apartment or to vaccent it
can anyone know how to proceed with this situation
Thank U for your help
Join the huurdersbond (syndicat-des-locataires) they will help you and tell you if you need to pay what is being asked by your landlord. It's a small yearly fee and they work for you not the landlord. Do a google search to find your local office. Hope this helps.
Your landlord may only increase the rent each year on the same date as the start of the contract and he may only increase it by the amount of the government's published cost of living index and then only if the index has increased by 2%. This is the law.
If he does not increase the rent on the correct date, he can do so at any time after but he may only back-date the increase by 2 months.
"what i know is every landlord will have to intimate abt the increase of rent before 2 moths or atleast one month so that we can decide to be in that apartment or to vaccent it "
This is not the case. He can state that the increase in rent is effective from the very next rent which is due. In addition, he can back-date the increase for the last three months:
"cette demande n’a pas d’effet rétroactif, sauf pour les trois mois qui précèdent le mois de la demande."
"deze vraag heeft geen terugwerkende kracht, behalve voor de drie maand voorafgaand aan de maand van de aanvraag."
Has he indexed the rent annually during your lease? If so, 68 euros does not seem correct (all of course depends on the amount of rent you pay). However, if this is the first increase since you moved in, then 68 euros is feasible.
About the charges: you seem to have a contract where it is specified that you pay the actual amount of consumption (rather than a set amount that may or may not tally with the real figures). In principle he does have the right to ask for the extra of the full five years. However, make sure you demand to see all the calculations provided by the syndicat of the building, giving full details how these amounts have been arrived at.
Also, asking for 7500 euro by the end of the month is excessive. Your landlord has been grossly negligent; he should have requested these extra payments each year; asking them all in one go places a massive burden on you.
So if you refuse to pay and the landlord takes you to court, the judge will very likely grant you a right to a payment plan, for example 500 euro a month, until the debt is cleared.
