Can a tenant get out of a rental contract by giving notice?

TomF

My daughter and three other college girls rented an apartment in Dublin for €1300 a month with a 12-month term. When the school year ended, one of the girls wanted to go home to work to earn money for next school year, so the four gave a month's notice to the landlord.

He responded that they forfeit the deposit (also €1300) and he will hold them responsible for the balance of the rent in the contract (July and August for a total of €2600). This means that for those four girls to get out of the contract will cost them €3900!

I looked at the signed contract last night and there is no provision in it for the tenants to give a month or any time notice to leave the apartment. However, the landlord has a clause allowing him to issue a Notice to Quit with 28 days notice to put tenants out for any reason.

I'm wondering if a contract like this would be supported if it were taken to a court. It seems to me that courts have looked at the "reasonability" of contracts in some situations, and there might be a chance for the girls to leave without losing a small fortune.

Maybe a good aspect of all this is that the landlord is being so rigid because he says the rental market in Dublin is becoming difficult for landlords.

This is being posted here because I think landlords, tenants and maybe even lawyers read this forum. I'm also going to post the same in the Accomodation board under Classifieds. Maybe someone with a like experience can reply.

Gordon

Make sure you get his pps number for the girls to claim rent allowance in the future by the way.

Sorry, I can't help out otherwise.

The Corinthian

In fairness, the contract would be viewed as fair - as students, they would have known that something like this might occur, yet signed anyway.

Even beyond legalities, they do have an ethical obligation, even if they can’t stay, they don’t have to leave the landlord in the lurch. My sister had a similar situation a good few years back, however what she did was sublet the apartment for the summer to others.

sceptre

Originally posted by Gordon
Make sure you get his pps number for the girls to claim rent allowance in the future by the way.

Sorry, I can't help out otherwise.

The Revenue will happily back date this to the date of occupation btw.

antoinolachtnai

In general, it isn't unreasonable to have a twelve month lease. It's quite common.

As you point out, it isn't really a twelve month lease if the landlord can give notice to quit at any time without cause. Whether this is unreasonable or just unfair is an interesting and expensive-looking legal question.

I wonder how the landlord proposes to collect the excess rent he considers to be due.

seamus

As far as I can tell, this kind of thing happens all the time, and the normal thing to do is to find someone to either replace the tenant who's leaving, or indeed, to find people to replace all the tenants. Most landlords should have no problem with this, cos they can then lock the new tenants into another year lease, and it saves them all the hassle of going to court to collect back rent, and also from having to look for/vet replacement tenants.

Ask the landlord if he'd be willing to release the girls from the contract if they found new tenants who'll sign a year lease. He probably will.

Out of curiosity, why are all of the girls leaving if only one is going home?

RainyDay

I don't want to sound like 'I told you so' but obviously the time to have read the small print was at the start of the contract, not the end. Threshold may be able to provide specialist advice on this situation, but I'd be surprised if there was any easy way for the tenant to 'walk away' from the 12-month committment in the contract.