I’m a landlord — should I evict my single mother tenant or put her rent up 20%?
- Manchester landlord Mark, 63, is facing the prospest of raising a single mother’s rent by 20% or selling property to cope with rising costs
- As consumer champion Sarah Davidson explains, the Renters’ Rights Act limits rent hikes; excessive increases can be challenged by tenants
- She advises instead selling the property with tenants in situ as a compassionate solution
For more than two decades, being a landlord was very lucrative gig.
But over the past eight years, successive governments have chipped away at the tax advantages of buy-to-let investing.
Interest rates have gone up, making mortgages more expensive and leading to higher and higher rents.
Earlier in the year, new rules also came in to protect renters’ rights, causing many landlords to reassess whether it’s worth it anymore.
This week’s Money Problem comes from Mark, a 63-year-old landlord in Manchester who is among those feeling the squeeze.
Should he put the rent up or sell up altogether? He asked Metro consumer champion, Sarah Davidson, for her verdict.
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The problem…
I own two buy-to-let properties in Manchester that I bought 18 years ago as a pension investment.
At the start, they made good money. But over the years, rule changes, less tax relief and higher mortgage rates have wiped out my profits.
The reality is that the properties are worth a lot more than they were and if I sell, I’ll walk away with about £220,000. If I keep them, I’m going to have to put the rents up by about 20% to cover my costs.
One of my tenants is a single mother who has been there for seven years and says she won’t be able to afford it. I feel bad but I am not running a charity.
Should I raise the rent or evict her and just sell up?
What would you do if you were in the landlord's position?
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Increase the rent by 20%
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Sell the properties with tenants in situ
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Evict the tenant and sell the property
The answer…
This is a dilemma that thousands of private landlords are currently wrestling with.
The era of easy, highly profitable buy-to-let investing is over and it’s forcing many to make hard choices.
I agree that you’re ‘not running a charity’ – you’re running a business. But unlike closing a shop that is not covering its costs, you’re running a business that provides people with their homes.
That comes with a set of ethical and legal responsibilities that you cannot simply shrug off when profit margins get tight.
The Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force at the start of May, has banned Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions.
It also puts in place much stricter rules on how much you can raise the rent by each year.
The average private rent in Manchester was £1,347 in March 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics, while rental growth in the city has cooled significantly , running at around 2.8%.
You are proposing a 20% rent increase to ‘cover your costs’. And while you’re legally entitled to put the rent up to the current open market rate, under the new rules, tenants can challenge excessive, above-market hikes.
If your proposed 20% increase pushes the rent significantly above what similar properties in Manchester are letting for, a tribunal will likely block it.
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Your alternative option is to ‘evict her and just sell up’.
If you genuinely intend to exit the buy-to-let market, you are legally entitled to kick her out to do so, but because she’s been in the property for seven years, you will need to give her a minimum four month’s notice.
Still, I’d urge you to think this through with a bit more due care. Your investment is her home. She has likely paid you tens of thousands of pounds in rent, helping you cover the mortgage while the property’s value has ticked up.
There’s a third way here.
Rather than evicting her so you can sell the property empty, you could consider selling your properties to another investor with the tenants in situ.
That would mean they keep their homes while still allowing you to extract your capital.
Do not make a single mother or your other tenant pay the price for the change to your financial situation.
If the business no longer works for you, close it down with compassion.
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