Adding person to letting agreement

eoinoc

Hey,

• I'm on a letting agreement with another couple in the house.
• Landlord wanted to increase rent earlier in the year, but the three of us only moved in June 2007, so they backed down.
• Now I want my wife to be on the letting agreement also.
• Sherry Fitz are the agent, and they charge €50 for changing the letting agreement :mad:
• But question is, can we force them just to add an "insertion" to the letting agreement to include my wife?
• Or can they insist on creating a new contract, and therefore, setting a higher rent in the process? I want to be sure that they can't do that. We're in the house only since June 2007. And they can only increase the rent after 12 months. But I'm afraid with a "new" contract they may instist on a higher rent.

On a side query:

• They told me that after the 12 months is up, we'll be on a month-to-month basis (not signing up for another letting agreement).
• Would that situation affect our rights/power as tenants?

Eoin

Afuera

You have been in the property for more than 6 months so you are protected under what is known as a Part IV tenancy agreement. This gives you a certain amount of security for a 4 year period from when you started renting. You need to be aware though that the landlord can legally break the agreement for a few specific reasons (selling the property, renovation, change of use, etc.). The agent can not scrap the old lease and try and start a new one; the date you began renting the property will always be considered the begining of that tenancy. Even if your are renting on a month by month basis the security of tenure will still be in place.

I must say that EUR 50 fee sounds a bit dodgy. The law states that if someone is already living in a rented property you may make a request for them to become a tenant, and it can't be denied without a good reason. Slapping charges for availing of this right could be problematic. Threshold would know more on whether this is allowed or not.

Reading between the lines of the situation you describe, it sounds like your landlord is running into cashflow problems. Legally they can't raise the rent until at least 12 months after the lease was signed, yet they still attempted to do this. Most landlords do not like to leave leases running on a month by month basis since the tenants can easily walk away from these arrangements. The only reason I can think that a landlord would prefer this set up is if they were planning on selling in the near future and did not want to add the complications of breaking a fixed-term lease.

Also, just one further point to add regarding rent reviews. These can be used to lower rents as well as raise them. When you are coming up to June 2008 (i.e. a year after your tenancy began) you should see what the going rate is for similar properties in the area. If you find that they are lower than what you are currently paying you are entitled to send a letter to the agent/landlord requesting that the rent "be set at the market rate of X". After the rent has been reviewed, it can not be reviewed for another 12 months.

Victor

I'm not sure if you really need to add your wife. Any circumstances I can think of (you moving out, etc.) means your wife can still stay there.

eoinoc

Thanks for the info.

Afuera:
I've been in contact with Threshold. What Sherry Fitz argued is that my wife needs to be on the lease if she's living there. The letting agreement covers "my dependents", but it could be argued that my wife is not my dependent, as she's working. Therefore, Sherry Fitz can stipulate the need to make her tenant if she wants to stay.

As for the €50 charge, it seems that it's legal to charge an admin fee. I rang the PRTB about this after speaking with Threshold, but the guy there was saying they don't have anything to do with my lease, only with the registration of tenants. Adding a tenant to an existing tenancy is free for the landlord (€70 registration fee is for new registrations only). But this is separate from the leasing agreement and what the landlord requires.

Regarding increasing rent: when we moved in, Sherry Fitz gave us a letting agreement. I think they failed to increase the rent at that time compared with the former residents. So our rent is actually below market value in today's terms by about €150 a month. Also, Threshold said that having a new letting agreement in June 2008 won't really add to our rights as tenants - that it's OK to have a month-to-month arangement. We (the three official residents) will still be protected by Part IV residency, and they can only increase the rent once a year even if our letting agreement is month-to-month. This sounds right? They would also have to give us 42 days notice and reason for termination, if they wanted to terminate the tenancy after a year of tenancy.

Victor:
The main reason we want her registered is that she has a non-Irish EU passport. From what I understand, when applying for Irish citizenship, you need to prove where you've been living in Ireland for the last 4 years. Her official address regarding Revenue is at my parent's house, but we'd prefer to have her on our tenancy. It might save us a problem in the future.

Eoin

Victor

Well how much is that worth to you?

You could put all the bills in her name.

antoinolachtnai

Nothing they can say can change your rights as a tenant.

I wouldn't sign anything.

I would write to them and ask them to make your wife a tenant. If they refuse, or demand money for this, don't worry. Forget about it. You tried. In the eyes of the law, your wife is probably a tenant. At the worst, she is a licensee and perfectly entitled to be in your home. If the agent calls, be polite, but pay no heed.

All they can do is try to evict you and your wife. If you are paying the rent every month and maintaining the place, they are unlikely to try to do this. Eviction during a part IV tenancy is a hard thing to do. In my view, they are very unlikely indeed to get an eviction order against you on the basis of what you have described.

Anybody who gets served or gets threatened with an eviction order should get legal advice.

eoinoc

I would prefer to have my wife as a tenant rather than licensee. And notifying them of her residency would only lead to that, unless I specifically request them to place her on the letting agreement. But they're arguing that anyone resident in the house needs to be on the letting agreement.

When it comes down to it, I'm just not happy paying the €50 admin fee. We'll go ahead and do it, because it allows her to be a full tenant, but it doesn't seem very fair.

Also, the first couple were on the letting agreement for a couple of months before I moved in in June 2007. When I moved in, we went to Sherry Fitz, and added me to the agreement, and I paid €50. Paying €50 to move into a house doesn't seem fair.

Afuera

eoinoc wrote: »

I've been in contact with Threshold. What Sherry Fitz argued is that my wife needs to be on the lease if she's living there.

Unless the lease explicitly states this I think they are wrong here. As a tenant you are obliged to keep them informed of who is living in the property, but that can simply be done over the phone or in a letter. Her status would be as a licensee unless they add her to the contract but I do not see a real problem for her to leave it at that. People renting with owner-occupier landlords under the rent-a-room scheme are all considered licensees rather than tenants in the eyes of the law too.

eoinoc wrote: »

Also, Threshold said that having a new letting agreement in June 2008 won't really add to our rights as tenants - that it's OK to have a month-to-month arangement. We (the three official residents) will still be protected by Part IV residency, and they can only increase the rent once a year even if our letting agreement is month-to-month. This sounds right? They would also have to give us 42 days notice and reason for termination, if they wanted to terminate the tenancy after a year of tenancy.

If you had another fixed term lease, they would not be able to evict you until it has finished.

eoinoc wrote: »

The main reason we want her registered is that she has a non-Irish EU passport. From what I understand, when applying for Irish citizenship, you need to prove where you've been living in Ireland for the last 4 years. Her official address regarding Revenue is at my parent's house, but we'd prefer to have her on our tenancy. It might save us a problem in the future.

Having Irish bank statments showing money going and coming from her account over a four year period along with her P60 forms from the Revenue would probably be preferred than simply having her listed as a tenant on the lease. I agree with antoinolachtnai that maybe it is not really worth the hassle and EUR 50 to do this, but it is your choice.

antoinolachtnai

If this is what the OP really wants, and it will give him peace of mind for the reason he stated, then it is probably worth 50 euros to be done with the thing.

eoinoc

Thanks ppl. I've a better idea now of what's involved.

One follow-up question.

If you had another fixed term lease, they would not be able to evict you until it has finished.

From what I understood from Threshold, it doesn't really matter if you have a lease or not. As we fall into Part IV residency, they would have to give a valid reason for kicking us out, and as long as they gave us 42 days notice, they could end the letting agreement. Am I wrong?

antoinolachtnai

No. If the lease gave you (the tenant) additional rights, you have them in addition to the rights the law gives you.

(But it generally doesn't work in the opposite direction, i.e, the landlord can't reduce your statutory rights by adding clauses to the lease.)