Evicting a tenant

Tweeter

I have a tenant who won't pay his rent. At the weekend I'll be serving him with 28 days notice to terminate the tenancy and vacate the premises as per the PRTB rules on giving notice. The tenancy is registered with the PRTB. Question is this, if after the 28 day notice period the tenant refuses to leave I will then need to instigate eviction proceedings against him.
I have no idea how this process works and would love to hear from anyone who has been through it,

any help greatly appreciated,

Tweeter

miju

not much help i know but the only thing i can tell you is that it can take quite a long time to eventually evict the tenant

seamus

As best I understand it, you will need a court order to have him forcibly removed from the premises. I can't find any specific legislation that allows a forcible removal by the landlord (indeed, their right to refuse you entry is protected by the constitution). Luckily, because you're registered with the PRTB and have adequately provided sufficient notice, he has nowhere to make an appeal - the PRTB will turn him down, and the law requires that he go to the PRTB instead of the courts.

If you're really worried about it, maybe have a chat with a local Garda. They'll have done this a few times before, and so will be able to tell you what kind of backups they can give you. Often they'll come down to give a presence, even if they can't actually do anything.

You could go down the other route, and enter the premises when he's not there, change the locks and dump his stuff out in the hallway in boxes...

sharpsuit

Changing the locks and removing the tenant's belongings is bad advice and you will be breaking the law. The Gardai would also be breaking the law if they facilitated your illegal eviction.

Check with the PRTB or a solicitor for advice. I think you need to give 14-days notice of the rent arrears, then if the arrears are not paid, give the tenant 28 days notice. Check with the PRTB to make sure you get the notice correct.

Ask the PRTB how much they have awarded tenants for illegal evictions, even where there are rent arrers.

Tweeter

seamus wrote:

You could go down the other route, and enter the premises when he's not there, change the locks and dump his stuff out in the hallway in boxes...

Thanks for your input Seamus, much appreciated.
I would love to act on your last comment, going the alternative route, but I really don't want to bring any trouble onto myself. With a bit of luck the PRTB can get him to see sense if he refuses to leave.
Calling the local police would be a good first option like you state.
I should point out that it may not come to this and he may leave at the end of the notice period, I just have a gut feeling he's going to cause me problems and so would like to know my options if it does come to eviction.
As you can imagine this is a major pain in the ar*e and is now costing me a fortune.
Nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to forcibly fcuk him out onto the street, but I would like to keep it within the law as I don't want any consequences to come back to me over it.

Tweeter

seamus

Tweeter wrote:

I would love to act on your last comment, going the alternative route, but I really don't want to bring any trouble onto myself.

Indeed, it would not be the most sensible thing to do.

One thing which may be useful to note is that if his rent is twenty-eight days or more overdue and he vacates the premises without notice, then it is assumed that he has left, and he can't come back. It probably won't apply here - vacate would mean, "Taken all his stuff with him", not "Gone down to the shops". But it may be something useful to know.

Tweeter

Thanks again Seamus, appreciate it.

I would still like to hear from anyone who has (or knows of someone who has) been through a full legal eviction. I'd be very interested to hear all about it.

esmeralda

How possible/legal would it be to cut off the water supply?

roughan

Did u make any allowances for this scenario in the lease?
next time do i have it in mine they sign it and your grand

sharpsuit

Roughan,

What exactly do you provide in your lease?

patrickolee

Tweeter wrote:

Thanks again Seamus, appreciate it.

I would still like to hear from anyone who has (or knows of someone who has) been through a full legal eviction. I'd be very interested to hear all about it.

I have a sister, whos going through an eviction in the UK. Things might be very different there, in terms of the law and I think she was particularly unfortunate with the tenant she got. The police say he's well known and has done what he is doing several times, in different parts of the country. It's going on one and half years now... through the courts. But as I say, I think her experience has been particularly bad and probably not representative.

Tweeter

roughan wrote:

Did u make any allowances for this scenario in the lease?
next time do i have it in mine they sign it and your grand

Afraid not. I do have a clause in my lease which states that if the rent payment is more than 7 days late that the tenancy is deemed null and void. However you still have to serve the notice period to them in writing, there appears to be no way around this.
Basically you're fcuked if you have a tenant who won't pay, there is no quick way to get them out (legally that is)

seamus

esmeralda wrote:

How possible/legal would it be to cut off the water supply?

It's not. Basically.
However, if the landlord has been paying for facilities such as electricity and gas as part of the tenancy agreement, then they can choose to stop paying them and ask that they be turned off.

sharpsuit

seamus wrote:

It's not. Basically.
However, if the landlord has been paying for facilities such as electricity and gas as part of the tenancy agreement, then they can choose to stop paying them and ask that they be turned off.

Have you anthing to support this? You are advising OP to break the law which is not very responsible. Tenants have a right to peaceful occupation and by acting in such a way that deprives them of a utility interferes with this right. Also, it would be a term of the tenancy agreement that the landlord pays for those utilities and by getting the services turned off, the landlord would be breaking the tenancy agreement.

Having a tenant not paying rent is a real pain. However, breaking the law is much more expensive in the long run.

calsatron

A lease can't reduce the tenants entitlements below their base legal entitlement. ie you can't put "I reserve the right the evict the tenant for any reason I deem acceptable with zero notice" and expect it to be enforceable.

In the case of non-payment of rent its 14 days subsequent to payment date you can issue 28 days notice.

In the case of cutting off services I'd be extremely careful, remember the PRTB is an arbitration service so they'll basically take an opinion on the case based on current legal precedents and issue a finding. I know that if they asked me I'd say that cutting off services made the dwelling effictively uninhabitable and therefore it had the same net effect as changing the locks.

patrickolee

I don't think you'd be able to cut off services, even if you wanted to.. unless you were going to break out the kango hammer yourself. Certainly as previous posters said, it would be v bad idea and leave you in a worse position. Accept that you are going to lose a couple of months money and take it the legal route.

Tweeter

This thread is rapidly veering off topic. While I appreciate the suggestions I'm certainly not going to attempt anything illegal which is why I asked the question in the first place.

Anyone familiar with the steps and length of time it takes to legally evict a tenant?

As an aside I would love to cut all services change the locks and fcuk the tenant and his belongings out onto the street as it's costing me money, but unfortunately these actions are all illegal.

seamus

sharpsuit wrote:

Also, it would be a term of the tenancy agreement that the landlord pays for those utilities and by getting the services turned off, the landlord would be breaking the tenancy agreement.

Indeed, it would depend on the wording of a tenancy agreement. I should remember to use "may be able to" instead of "can", I usually do

tHE vAGGABOND

I hope you have a similar agreement with that dodgy slum landlord of yours Seamus

dereko1969

presumably the deposit you took at the outset should mitigate some of the losses? is this the first month the tenant hasn't paid? have you spoken to the tenant themselves to try and sort it out? are you certain they're still in the property? they could have done a runner or gone on holiday or been overdrawn when the rent was due?