Lease question.

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Hey folks
Have a big question for ye all, lookin to move into a new place but the apartment requires you sign a years lease. My question is this: If I sign the lease do I have to stay there for the year or is there any way I can break the lease, ie. by giving enough notice?

Have heard mixed reports from friends and had a look through the stickies and didnt see anything definitive...

Thanks

Hail

BC

Check the terms of your lease, it really depends on what it says.

Usually they are entitled to hold you to the rent for the full year however I've never heard of this actually being enforced.

antoinolachtnai

I would not take on a 12-month lease unless I fully intended to fulfill its terms. It's just bad business. What can they do to you if you decide to break your side of the bargain? Well, don't expect to get your deposit back for a start.

If the landlord isn't able to rent again, he could pursue you through the PRTB process and get you to compensate him for lost rent (although I have never heard of this actually being done).

Calina

Read the lease. Alternatively request that a clause to the effect of agreement can be ended by either party with x amount of notice. I think mine has two months in it but the clause was inserted at my request. Not because I didn't expect to fulfill the lease, but because my life doesn't organise itself in nice little 12 month blocks. I've been in the current place for 18 months now and will probably stay out till the end of the current lease. Note that if you do that, it gives the same right to termination to your landlord.

What has never really been made clear to me, however, is whether the notice provisions under Part VI in the event of a rental lasting longer than 6 months supercede the provisions in a lease.

antoinolachtnai

This is not legal advice, but generally speaking, my understanding is that you do not waive your right to tenure by having a lease. You have the rights you derived from the lease, and in addition you have the rights from the statute.

So my understanding is that your landlord cannot terminate your lease, except under special circumstances. But you should check with prtb to be sure.

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Calina wrote:

Read the lease. Alternatively request that a clause to the effect of agreement can be ended by either party with x amount of notice. I think mine has two months in it but the clause was inserted at my request. Not because I didn't expect to fulfill the lease, but because my life doesn't organise itself in nice little 12 month blocks.

I'm pretty much in the same position, dont really want to be commited to a year long lease as im not 100% what I will be doing. Will most likely be going through an estate agents so im sure they will be able to explain the terms to me or may talk to them about entering a similar clause...

BC: A friend of mine is having trouble with his land lord where one of the guys living with him is moving out and the land lord wont let them find any one else for the room... So he is basically gonna have to pay three months rent while he's living in another county.

Thanks for all the help

Calina

antoinolachtnai wrote:

This is not legal advice, but generally speaking, my understanding is that you do not waive your right to tenure by having a lease. You have the rights you derived from the lease, and in addition you have the rights from the statute.

So my understanding is that your landlord cannot terminate your lease, except under special circumstances. But you should check with prtb to be sure.

Under Part VI, both parties can end a lease with specific notice periods. The question is whether you as tenant can end that agreement if there is a time limit on the lease - ie - if the lease supercedes your right to end the agreement with 56 days notice. The landlord can only terminate it under certain conditions, but one of those conditions is sale of a property and it is more common - and hence significantly more disruptive - than you'd imagine. In France it is possible to get an open ended lease that involves 3 months notice. I would find that a great deal more useful than the fixed term leases that are prevalent here.

useruser

antoinolachtnai wrote:

This is not legal advice, but generally speaking, my understanding is that you do not waive your right to tenure by having a lease. You have the rights you derived from the lease, and in addition you have the rights from the statute.

So my understanding is that your landlord cannot terminate your lease, except under special circumstances. But you should check with prtb to be sure.

Are you saying that a landlord can terminate a lease even if the lease includes no provision to do so? I am still not clear on this point - it has also come up over on askaboutmoney.com: http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=44647 and the advice there is also confused.

antoinolachtnai

As I read it, generally the act is supposed to give rights to tenants, not take them away.

My understanding in that case is that the lease can give the tenant extra rights, but it cannot take them away. This means he is entitled to remain until the end of the 12 months even though the tenant is selling.

However, the opposite is not true, i.e., a lease cannot give the landlord extra rights.

So the answer to your specific query is no (in my opinion of course, see disclaimer below). If there is a 12 month lease in place with no exception clause, he cannot give notice during that period even if he is going to sell the house. He is going to have to buy the the tenant out or wait him out.

Is that inconsistent with what I said before? i.e, Does the statute give the tenant to terminate any time by giving notice regardless of what the lease says about minimum term. Certainly for the first 6 months, the lease isn't a part IV tenancy. After that, I concede that there is room for argument. On a strict reading, it would appear that the tenant's right to terminate after giving appropriate notice is fairly absolute.

If this interpretation is true though, it means that there is no longer any good reason for landlords to enter long leases with tenants, and this is probably going to be bad for tenant welfare in the longer term. It is possible that this could be gotten around through obtuse drafting.

I still do not think the OP should enter a lease which he doesn't intend to comply with. The reason isn't just the legal issue, it's because it's bad business to make even informal commitments which you don't intend to comply with.

Of course this is my opinion and I am not a solicitor (or even an ethicist!). If you are in this situation, you should ask the PRTB or a solicitor familiar with the particular situation what they think.

useruser

antoinolachtnai wrote:

So the answer to your specific query is no (in my opinion of course, see disclaimer below). If there is a 12 month lease in place with no exception clause, he cannot give notice during that period even if he is going to sell the house. He is going to have to buy the the tenant out or wait him out.

Thanks for the clarification Antoin.

Is that inconsistent with what I said before?

Only a little:

My understanding is that your landlord cannot terminate your lease, except under special circumstances.

Do you know what these special circumstances are? Presumably they don't include the Part IV regulations (sale, renovation, landlord/family member moving in)?

I still do not think the OP should enter a lease which he doesn't intend to comply with. The reason isn't just the legal issue, it's because it's bad business to make even informal commitments which you don't intend to comply with.

Agreed.

antoinolachtnai

Right, by special circumstances I mean something more (like you going crazy or bankrupt or not paying the rent). It wouldn't be enough for him to want to sell it or move in.

Again this is my understanding, I'm not a lawyer. (Sorry to keep on repeating the disclaimer, but them's the rules.) Anyway, good tenant relations are based on relationships not law.