”If You Don’t Like It, Leave”: Bengaluru Woman Says Landlord Hiked Rent Without Warning
Rents in India’s technology hub of Bengaluru have nearly doubled
Rents in India’s technology hub of Bengaluru have nearly doubled since the start of last year, making it the country’s hottest residential market. According to a Bloomberg report, landlords in the city, now charge the highest proportion of their property’s value as rent, edging out financial centre Mumbai, as per data from market researchers.
Several Bengaluru residents are now taking to social media to share their rental problems in the IT hub. One such tenant complained that her landlord increased the rent suddenly without any warning and ignored the terms of their contract. When she confronted him, her landlord left her no option but to either pay up or leave.
”My Bengaluru landlord hiked up the rent without warning, completely ignoring the terms of the contract. And when I asked for an explanation, he simply said, ”If you don’t like it, you can leave and find a new place. The rent in my area has gone up by 100 per cent in just 1 year,” software engineer Khushboo Verma wrote.
See the tweet here:
My Bengaluru landlord hiked up the rent without any warning, completely ignoring the terms of our contract.
And when I asked for an explanation, he simply said ‘If you don’t like it, you can leave and find a new place.’
😐
— Khushboo Verma (@khushbooverma_) April 4, 2023
The software engineer added that rent has increased by a whopping 100 per cent in her area in just one year.
In a follow-up tweet, she said, ”Considering the number of people who can relate with this situation speaks volumes about the condition of real estate in Bengaluru. Rent has increased by 100% in my area in just one year.”
”This also reminds me of the latest incident where my friends vacated their apartment and their landlord found 100 minor problems in the state of the apartment and refused to refund a hefty amount of the security deposit,” she added.
This also reminds of the latest incident where my friends vacated their apartment and their landlord found a 100 minor problems in the state of the apartment and refused to refund a hefty amount of the security deposit.
— Khushboo Verma (@khushbooverma_) April 4, 2023
Other people from Bengaluru also shared similar experiences. One user wrote, ”Faced the same situation a couple of months back Landlord increased rent by 50% without any warning Vacated that house, found a new one, but finally ended up paying 80% more for the new one.”
Another added, ”My house landlord raised the rent from 45k to 70k (semi furnished 3bhk) ignoring the rent agreement. He settled down to 60k but still it’s unjustified. He gave the same reasons that we can vacate the place if we don’t want to pay that much.”
A third said, ”Went through a similar experience last year. Few comments, this is fair on landlord’s side, just that given how difficult it is move flats, notice period should be 3x on landlord’s side.
Notably, the city is home to over 1.5 million workers including those for global firms like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Accenture Inc.
“Rental market is too hot right now. Apartments had to be rented out at very low rates during Covid as many went back to their hometowns. Now that people are getting back to the office, landlords are making up for their losses with higher rents,” Prashant Thakur, head of research at property consultancy firm Anarock told Bloomberg.
Recently, another resident claimed that landlords in the city are preferring tenants who have degrees from prestigious institutes like IIT, IIM and the Indian School of Business (ISB).
