Can she keep our deposit?

eleven

Hi everyone.

My boyfriend and I saw a lovely 2 bed house for rent, viewed it, loved it put down a deposit of 900 quid on it (on tuesday night). A couple of days later my boyfriends work let some people go and said that they may be going to reduced hours.

So of course we're upset, we can't afford the new place anymore and contact the owner (on saturday), explaining our circumstances and requesting our deposit back. She is unwilling to do this.

Having investigated, it seems to me that a landlord can only withhold deposit if a) The tenant hasn't given notice to leave or b) there is damage on the property. And that the deposit remains the property of the tentant and the landlord does not have the right to hold it (threshold.ie and citizens info sites)

Now, I imagine that the only cause she'd have to keep it would be under a). But we haven't signed any lease or letting agreement at all yet. Just paid a deposit, which we recieved a reciept for.

So would it be right to say that we as we haven't actually signed anything, that we aren't her tenants yet and so don't have to give notice? Therefore she has not right to keep our deposit?

Blah. Crappy situation all round. We don't want to land her in it any more that we want to give up the house. But this is where we find ourselves all the same.

Any thoughts?

Ostrom

eleven wrote: »

Hi everyone.

My boyfriend and I saw a lovely 2 bed house for rent, viewed it, loved it put down a deposit of 900 quid on it (on tuesday night). A couple of days later my boyfriends work let some people go and said that they may be going to reduced hours.

So of course we're upset, we can't afford the new place anymore and contact the owner (on saturday), explaining our circumstances and requesting our deposit back. She is unwilling to do this.

Having investigated, it seems to me that a landlord can only withhold deposit if a) The tenant hasn't given notice to leave or b) there is damage on the property. And that the deposit remains the property of the tentant and the landlord does not have the right to hold it (threshold.ie and citizens info sites)

Now, I imagine that the only cause she'd have to keep it would be under a). But we haven't signed any lease or letting agreement at all yet. Just paid a deposit, which we recieved a reciept for.

So would it be right to say that we as we haven't actually signed anything, that we aren't her tenants yet and so don't have to give notice? Therefore she has not right to keep our deposit?

Blah. Crappy situation all round. We don't want to land her in it any more that we want to give up the house. But this is where we find ourselves all the same.

Any thoughts?

Be very clear on this with her: you do NOT need to sign anything to have entered into a contract. Have a look at the synopses here: www.prtb.ie

She cannot keep this money

Overheal

Security Deposit is not the same thing as a Down Payment. The latter is very frequently non refundable.

StormWarrior

efla wrote: »

Be very clear on this with her: you do NOT need to sign anything to have entered into a contract. Have a look at the synopses here: www.prtb.ie

Surely this would work against the OP though, as the landlady can say they had a verbal agreement that they would move in and now the OP is breaking the agreement, kind of like leaving without paying rent. Seems to me like the landlady can keep the deposit. Even if she can't, it's often very difficult to get landlords to give the money back.

The Recliner

You have a thread on this in Accomodation and Property and that is the right place for it