Rent deposit not being returned

Mr Burns

I am posting this on behalf of a friend who is a little embarrassed.

My friend rented a house in North Kildare, they were there for 9 months. Rent was paid every month on time. They signed a 12 month lease that could be broken by either party at 1 months notice. On the 31st October they gave the landlord notice that were leaving on 30th November. The Landlord is refusing to give back the deposit because they didn't stay there for the full 12 months. He is adamant on that.

They want to take him to small claims to get the money back, do they stand any chance?

Also during the tenancy the land lord would frequently show up and let himself into the house when they were out. He never gave any notice. This kind of freaked them out as they would have personal items in the house ie bank statements etc and feels her privacy was invaded. Would that constitute a breach of lease? He also never supplied a rent book or receipts for rent paid.

Do they have a leg to stand on?

Thanks

Monty

spongebob

They do and he does not. Tell them to ask for the rent book now, filled up in full...and his RSI number so that they can claim the Rent Relief they are due from the Revenue.

They will walk it in the Small Claims Court.

M

Nuttzz

well the landlord should have entered the house without premission but that will have nothing to do with the rent, it really depends on what the lease says about the deposit. if it is not specified then they will have a right to get it back, but chances are he will says its for "damaged" so photograph everything before they go

Victor

Mr Burns wrote:

They signed a 12 month lease that could be broken by either party at 1 months notice.

This sounds unusual, are they certain this is the case?

They want to take him to small claims to get the money back, do they stand any chance?

It depends on a lot of things, most on whether the correct interpretation is given on the one month notice thing.

Also during the tenancy the land lord would frequently show up and let himself into the house when they were out.

Commonly known as trespass. Call the cops when it happens.

Would that constitute a breach of lease?

Yes.

He also never supplied a rent book or receipts for rent paid.

Do your friend have any evidence that they have paid up to date?

antoinolachtnai

I have been on the other end of this. There are a number of strange things in effect.

1. Normally a 12 month lease commits the tenant for that period. This is normal and reasonable.

However, I have come across one particular agent who has started issuing breakable 12-month leases, and then more-or-less railroads the landlord into accepting it. I don't know why the agent does this. Perhaps it is so that he can let the property more easily to students. The lease appears to be generated automatically from the software that the estate agents use.

2. The trespass issue - forget it. If you wanted to terminate the lease when it happened, you should have taken steps at that point. There's no point moaning about it now, after you've given your notice.

If the facts are really as you say, it sounds like the tenant has a strong case in Small Claims.

bobbyjoe

Check if he's registered with the Council
Dublin City Council’s Environment and Culture Department, Civic Offices, Dublin 8, T. 672 3373
Landlords are soooo tight with money many don't register so you have him if he isn't.
Also ask him for his pps number for the rent tax relief get the form from www.revenue.ie

Sounds dodgy go for the small claims court if he dosen't give in.

Good luck

RainyDay

Contact Threshold for expert advice.

seamus

An absolutely staggering number of Landlords chance their arm at holding onto a deposit for spurious reasons at the end of a lease period. I can't count the number of times someone has mentioned/asked about a friend (particularly foreign people) who has had this happen to them.

He's chancing his arm. I'd say a lot of people just walk without bothering to mention the small claims court, and the greedy landlord holds onto their deposit. There are a lot of scumbag landlords out there.

Though as Victor says, get them to doublecheck the lease agreement first for that one month's notice thing.

shoegirl

I'm not sure about the legality of the witholding deposit in the event of a 12 month lease terminating early. From my experience of shorthold assured tenancies in the UK the lenth of the lease didn't automatically entitle the landlord to withold the rent for an early departure as long as the required level of notice was given. These are 6 month leases by the way. I think it is reasonable for a tenant to expect to get their rent back as people can be very mobile.

As for the rent book situation you are entitled by law to a rent book. there is no doubt about it.
In 75% of cases the landlord who doesn't give a rent book is probably hiding the paper trail to evade tax and landlords who evade tax are often also quick to ignore other regulations. I'd be wary of mentioning the Rent Relief in this situation, but the Small Claims Court is the way to go.

antoinolachtnai

If you pay your rent by standing order, it often isn't the procedure to give a written receipt. It would be reasonable to ask for a statement, but I can't see how this makes any difference to the situation, since the amount of rent paid isn't at issue.

There is no such thing as an 'assured tenancy' in Ireland, at least not in the sense which shoegirl is referring to. The assured tenancy was only introduced in the 80's in the UK as I recall. It isn't part of Irish law.

This case depends on what terms were in the lease.

It is perfectly reasonable to agree (and for either the landlord or tenant to enforce) a 12-month minimum stay.

At this stage, the number of landlords who are evading tax by not declaring rental income is diminishing very rapidly indeed.

RainyDay

antoinolachtnai wrote:

At this stage, the number of landlords who are evading tax by not declaring rental income is diminishing very rapidly indeed.

This is something that I'm very curious about. I still hear relatively frequent anecdotal evidence of landlords refusing to give out their PPS number or conspiring with the tenant via rent reductions to stop the tenant claiming rent relief. I'm just wondering if you've seen any hard data on this issue?

antoinolachtnai

Well, there are few hard figures, but the things that are militating against it are that the rent relief thing is always overhanging landlords (contrary to popular opinion, you do not need the landlord's PPS to claim); the revenue has a good idea which houses belong to whom and are rented out (from stamp duty records and its address databases) and can follow up; rents are now sufficiently large and are commonly paid monthly, meaning that handling them in cash is impractical. Letting agents are being used more widely, making it more difficult to hide stuff. Things like the register of landlords will make the whole thing even more transparent.

No doubt there are some people getting away with it, but I just can't see it lasting.

If you think your landlord is making large amounts of tax-free money on your rent, you're probably wrong. Being a landlord in Ireland at the moment is pretty tough going at the moment no matter what way you look at it. The number of rented properties is increasing and the yields are pretty low. The only good thing about being a landlord is that he is building some equity in property that might go up in value.