Question about renting / landlord / obligations

Ostrom

I am renting a house in Kildare on a group lease with 3 others (aged between 21 and 24). 2 of us are funded research students, the others final year. I have been living here for 8 months, one other for 2 years, and 2 others for 5 months.

Our landlord does not issue receipts and there is no rent book, we have asked for these previously and been given excuses. 2 of us need them to claim €2000 tax relief on our renting costs, this has been explained to him and excused by him with 'oh.....no one else here ever did this', 'cant you get a letter from the college saying you're paying rent'..... The agreement we signed doesnt look too sound either, our names are signed under crossed-off previous tenants.

Our house was broken into in early January and I lost €1500 worth of property, another €1000. We were told his insurance covers his own contents only, and that our personal property was not. Afterwards we asked for window locks to be fitted as there is no alarm system (and those locks that were in place were obviously no deterrant). We also have no individual locks on our bedroom doors, both requests were refused.

My questions:

Who / what government department do I report him to for this?

In terms of the insurance, can people offering property for rent insure it for their contents only? Are we entitled to anything?

Thanks for reading, any comments greatly appreciated,

Eoin

The_Conductor

Eoin- first of all, if you have a complaint you should contact the Private Residences Tenancies Board with whom the tenancy should be registered.
You don't need the landlord's details to claim your rental relief- note relief is in the form of a tax credit at the marginal rate- its worth about 400 Euro per annum (for 2008- it was lower in previous years).

Regarding insurance- unfortunately its entirely normal for tenants to have to take out their own policy to cover their own possessions. If you contact any broker they will offer you choice of numerous policy options. A landlord will normally have building cover, and possibly contents insurance for the furniture and fittings (little if anything else).

ixoy

smccarrick wrote: »

You don't need the landlord's details to claim your rental relief- note relief is in the form of a tax credit at the marginal rate- its worth about 400 Euro per annum (for 2008- it was lower in previous years).

The rental relief form looks for the landlord's address and their PPSN - so you do need all of this no?

SarahMc

No, you don't need Landlord's PPN no. You can fill out their name and address only. Revenue will give you the relief, and chase Landlord.

Also, it is standard that your contents are not covered under landlord's insurance policy.

starky

efla wrote: »

Our house was broken into in early January and I lost €1500 worth of property, another €1000. We were told his insurance covers his own contents only, and that our personal property was not.

Eoin

Sorry to hear about out that, it is a terrible experience to have had a break in. Offering insurance advice after an event that would have required it is not all that much use, but at least you can get insurance to protect your self in the future.

As a tenant you will be required to have your own contents insurance unfortunately, this is they way it has always worked. It is not hard to arrange and to be honest very reasonable. I have had mine with BOI for the last 5 years, it was €16 per month to start off with and now its down to €10.44 a month. That covers me for €35,000 worth of contents. This is the minimum policy you can get. Any time I move I just give them the new address and the cover is automatically moved.

It amazes me the amount of renters out there that have masses of uninsured contents. For the price of two pints a month you can have the peace of mind of knowing if you are broken into you will have some come back.