Where I live the price of rent is very high. The government has many rules governing rent. In my experience, it is common for people not to follow all the laws (either out of ignorance or intentionally).
Normally landlords can increase once per year but she did not the previous years, and I think wasn't legally allowed to do so given the COVID emergency measures. She might be thinking she can, but legally it isn't allowed to include previous years in the rent increase.
A couple of months ago my landlord verbally warned me the rent would be increasing. Now she has sent me a text message with the exact amount and deadline. The amount is over the legal limit. I've thought of sending the following message in reply:
Since the maximum rent increase is 1.2% this means I would be paying $1012 per month instead of $1025. Is this OK?
but I don't really want to ask if this is OK when it's something they're not legally allowed to say 'no' to. I also don't want to directly tell her she's breaking the law, as nobody likes being told so and I want to remain on good terms. She comes over and cleans so I do see her face to face regularly.
I've considered linking to online legislation or a rent increase calculator, but this may come too close to directly telling her she's breaking the law. To complicate matters the landlord's English isn't good so I would like to keep this as simple as possible.
Given the above, how do I tell this landlord that her rent increase is above the legal limit?