Landlord refusing to refund deposit

kathleenl

My daughter and her partner are living in Limerick City. They are having a problem with the landlord they were previously with.
They leased a property at the top of William St, and since then it has changed ownership. My daughter handed in her notice that they were leaving at the end of last week (this was handed in over a month ago). Since then they were woke up one morning with banging on the door from some neighbours only to discover that the flat was covered in water. One of the pipes running up behind the wall in the bathroom burst and flooded their flat. This was around 6am. She contacted the landlord and told him what happened. They had to move into the new accomodation sooner than they wanted to. She has tried to get her €600 deposit back of the landlord of the flooded flat but he keeps saying that they have no account of it or that they cant find any of the paper work. She has contacted the origional landlord and explained her case to him, he has told her that he gave all the paper work to the new owners and he hasnt a clue what the new owner is on about.
Is there any way she can get this money back. Both of them are working but on small wages and cant afford a loss like this.

Cathmandooo

All they can do is lodge a dispute with the PRTB www.prtb.ie

It'll take time though but hopefully they'll get the money back.

convert

As Cathmandoo mentioned, the best thing to do is to contact the PRTB and initiate a dispute against the landlord.

It would be a good idea to mention this to the landlord - it may encourage them to return the deposit before the case is heard, especially if the landlord isn't registered with the PRTB.

D3PO

not sure you can do much. Technically this landlord never recieved any deposit form your daughter.

So although the tennancy has continued who is responsible for deposit refund ? I genuinely dont know if the old landlord is or if the new one is.

kathleenl

The previous landlord made sure that the new landlord knew everything about the tennants. When my daughter confronted the new landlord after getting the run around for most of a week, he tried to blame the old landlord and said he didnt get any documentation from him. When my daughter spoke to the old landlord she said that if they go a solicitor about it would he back them up. He said he would.

I will pass along the advice i have gotten form all of ye. Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly on this.

triskellion

PRTB is the only route you'll get a definitive position on this. However it would make sense that in the sale of the unit, the old landlord assigned their interested to the new landlord. That should extend to the deposit.
If they didn't receive it from the old landlord then at a guess I would say that's a matter for them to resolve.
Surprising their respective solicitors didn't pick this up at contract stage.

3DataModem

Yes solicitors should have picked this up on conveyancing. Do you have copy of lease?

kathleenl

She is bringing them with her today so that i can read them. I might be able to post them on this site later.

alex73

Take him to small claims court,, it only cost 70 euros. For sure the deposit will be back once court notice arrives.

Paulw

alex73 wrote: »

Take him to small claims court,, it only cost 70 euros. For sure the deposit will be back once court notice arrives.

Firstly, the small claims court only costs €15.

Secondly, the small claims court will refer the matter to the PRTB.

Your recourse is to file a dispute with the PRTB.