You might recall that I have been in dispute with my town council this year over the unfairness of this year's allotment rent increase. The Council have now sent out a new tenancy agreement for everyone to sign which more or less resolves the dispute.
The crux of my complaint was that the rent review term which allowed the council to impose any increase they want without notice was unfair under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. I told the Council about the problem several times but they didn't want to know, and they set an unprecedented 47% increase, making Newbury's one of the more expensive sites at £69.40 for a full plot.
The Council refused to suspend the increase pending clarification, and having warned them I had no option but to report the matter to Trading Standards who suggested to the Council that they might like to ammend their tenancy agreement.
Our rent is due March 1st and the new agreement obliges the Council to give notice before February 1st for any new rent to take effect April 1st. The Council can still decide on an arbitrary increase which still makes the rent review unfair under the Regulations, but they can always impose an arbitrary rent increase by cancelling the agreement on a year's notice so as they have to give 13 months notice under the agreement of any increase it's not worth quibbling about.
It's been a humiliating and graceless climb-down for the Council that should never have become the angry dispute that it did. The rent increase is large, but that was never really the point. The substance of my complaint was always that the Council couldn't opt-out of their statutory obligation and that they needed to behave reasonably, and this made the Council very cross because actually they rather like behaving just exactly how they want.
I'd like to be able to tell you that now it's resolved we've shaken hands and we're all now best buddies, but no. They have not withdrawn my eviction notice, though it must by now be pretty obvious to them that this year's increase is unfair and hence any eviction for not paying it is unenforceable. Actually I rather suspect that the 13 month notice thing is not so much a concession to my request as a piece of incompetent drafting - it's my guess that they forgot that the rent became due in March rather than April, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they twig their mistake.
And the moral of the story: standing up to a council can be a lonley fight so don't kid yourself you're doing it for anyone but yourself.
