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Housing Association - 100% rent increase - accept it or leave
Can anyone shed some light on the legality of a letter that I received a couple of days ago?
My husband has been a tenant of a housing association since 2000 and during that time has rented alongside his tenancy, 2 parking spaces in the "Secure Parking" area beneath the above ground parking lot. We recently moved to another high rise block of flats with no parking whatsoever, (only "On Street - council permit parking"), and our landlords told us that as we were tenants of their association we were still entitled to use the parking facility in the same manner as before - renting spaces as association tenants). Their other blocks of flats have garages included with the tenancies at no extra cost to the tenants.
In all that time he never had a rental agreement for the parking spaces that he was paying for. The housing association staff have always insisted that the annual rent is paid in cash at their site office and not through the managing agents. My husband has always paid by cheque to ensure that it does not go into someone's back pocket.
However last year (last few days of October), a rental agreement was pushed through our door and my husband had to "Agree to the terms or remove his vehicles". So he signed the agreement despite the fact that there was some very convoluted legalese in it that neither of us understood and returned it. He was never given a copy of the agreement.
A couple of days ago an envelope was pushed through the door late at night.
It was not properly addressed and had not been conventionally posted. It contained a letter to my husband on plain paper (Not on Housing Association letterheaded paper) informing him that the Secure Parking rent would be increased by 100% from the end of the month (effective November 1st) and that if we were not prepared to accept the 100% rent increase that we must remove the vehicles from the secure parking facility by the end of October.
How legal is a this piece of paper? - Given the fact that it is not on Company Headed paper, it could have come from anyone so would it stand up in a court of law?
Can anyone advise please
My husband has been a tenant of a housing association since 2000 and during that time has rented alongside his tenancy, 2 parking spaces in the "Secure Parking" area beneath the above ground parking lot. We recently moved to another high rise block of flats with no parking whatsoever, (only "On Street - council permit parking"), and our landlords told us that as we were tenants of their association we were still entitled to use the parking facility in the same manner as before - renting spaces as association tenants). Their other blocks of flats have garages included with the tenancies at no extra cost to the tenants.
In all that time he never had a rental agreement for the parking spaces that he was paying for. The housing association staff have always insisted that the annual rent is paid in cash at their site office and not through the managing agents. My husband has always paid by cheque to ensure that it does not go into someone's back pocket.
However last year (last few days of October), a rental agreement was pushed through our door and my husband had to "Agree to the terms or remove his vehicles". So he signed the agreement despite the fact that there was some very convoluted legalese in it that neither of us understood and returned it. He was never given a copy of the agreement.
A couple of days ago an envelope was pushed through the door late at night.
It was not properly addressed and had not been conventionally posted. It contained a letter to my husband on plain paper (Not on Housing Association letterheaded paper) informing him that the Secure Parking rent would be increased by 100% from the end of the month (effective November 1st) and that if we were not prepared to accept the 100% rent increase that we must remove the vehicles from the secure parking facility by the end of October.
How legal is a this piece of paper? - Given the fact that it is not on Company Headed paper, it could have come from anyone so would it stand up in a court of law?
Can anyone advise please
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