Illustration: Shakespeare.

Illustration: Shakespeare.

We've had a couple of questions from tenants who have spent their own money making their rented apartment more comfortable, but their landlords now want to raise their rent.

If you plan to spend time and money improving a rented apartment, discuss the implications with your landlord or agent.

The improvements you make are worth nothing to them while you are still there. They only have any value when you're gone and they can rent the unit at a higher rate to someone else.

So the simplest way to protect your investment may be to lock yourself into a long-term lease before you start making any improvements.

In one of the examples, the landlord changed agents and the new one saw how attractive the apartment was and wanted to hike the rent by 25 per cent.

In that case, and any other where you feel you are being treated unfairly, you can go to Fair Trading and argue that the rent increase is excessive.

But in another case, the rent rise was prompted by an increase in the rent of a nearby flat.

That's harder to argue since Fair Trading bases its calculations on the current market value of similar properties in that area.