Threatened to be sued...

smiles302

Background: My house-mate moved out last week after giving a couple of hours notice.

He has demanded his deposit back, half of Sept's rent back and money for bin charges he paid back.
He says he has talked to a solicitor and is entitled to it all...

I'm not the landlord, I've constantly repeated none of this is any of my business, he needs to deal with the landlord etc etc.

He continues to harass me.

I am 95% sure he is talking out of his ass. I'm googled a good bit. He's not entitled to anything back yeah?

I-Shot-Jr

Block his number and send him a message that your "solicitor" has instructed you not to continue correspondence with him and if he has any issues to get in contact with the landlord. Ignore him, have a beer.

quozl

If he had a fixed term lease, then he's actually liable for the Landlord's losses over the rest of the lease if the land-lord can't re-let it, or has to let it at a lower rate.

If it's not fixed-term, but part 4, then he still has to give notice. The amount of notice depends on how long he's been there. But it's more than hours

I believe, but am not 100% certain, that the land-lord can take the notice he's due out of the deposit, which i would expect to wipe out the deposit.

The main point however is that this should be nothing to do with you. He needs to talk to the landlord. I assume you aren't holding this guys deposit for some strange reason?

[edit]
I-short-Jr put it well. That is exactly what I'd do too. This is nothing to do with you. Ignore the idiot.[/edit]

Xiney

depending on how the lease works, you may be liable for the full rent now.

let your landlord know immediately that your house-mate has moved out anyhow.

Oink

Just curious though... I can see how he would feell (rightly or not) that he should get the deposit back as well as the tax and all that, there's some sort of logic in that. But what did he say about half a month's rent for September? What's that about?

seamus

quozl wrote: »

I believe, but am not 100% certain, that the land-lord can take the notice he's due out of the deposit, which i would expect to wipe out the deposit.

Correct. Where insufficient notice is given, the deposit can be used to make up the shortfall in rent.

The guy would not be entitled to any rent returned to him for time he's already stayed in the house nor for any bin charges paid for bin collections which have already been done. If he pre-paid his bin charges, then perhaps he is entitled to them back, depending on how far up he has paid to and all sorts.

It's most likely that he hasn't spoken to a solicitor and is talking out of his arse. As said above, send him a message that you will not be speaking to him further about this and he should speak to the landlord. Some phones let you block the number, many don't. If he calls, hang up without answering (press the red button). If he texts, delete it and ignore it.

Talk to the landlord today to let him know what's been happening and tell him you would like to change the locks for any entrances to the property.

smiles302

Okay, better background: We agreed to rent the house from Sept onwards. The house-mate didn't move in until the middle of Sept but the house was ours to move into and we had all agreed to pay from the first of every month.

Landlord told us he had paid the bin charges for the year in June, so there was no panic to give him the money but we paid that around the same time as the deposit.

I told the landlord what happened, he told me to just pay my share and he'd get the rest of the rent from the deposit and asked me if I would look for someone to fill the room.

I have found someone to take the room and my old house-mate is saying he was only letting the landlord have the deposit to be nice to me so I wouldn't have to pay it. Is now saying that he is fully entitled to his full deposit back, is refusing to pay his share of bills for the month.

The landlord has agreed to pay him his deposit back, once the new person who moves in has paid the landlord theirs.

I asked the house-mate if he'd give me 25 euro towards bills for the month, ESB and eircom etc. He went mental and threatened to take me to court if I took any of his deposit money... And wants me to pay him back what he paid for the bin charges. So I did block him.

I'm 96% sure he's not entitled to a penny, the landlord told me he wasn't. That he only gave him the money because he wanted to avoid hassle.

convert

If you both agreed to take a house from 1 September, then it was his choice not to move in until mid September. It would be the same as me arguing that I shouldn't pay rent or bills for the weekends that I travel home.

Regardless of whether you signed a lease or are under Part 4 tenancy, a tenant is required to provide adequate notice to quit the property. A few hours is not sufficient, so, your former housemate loses his deposit. Technically if a lease was in place that contained no clause re. breaking the lease, the landlord could pursue him for the rent lost until you found a tenant to move in (technically he should have found the tenant to fulfil the necessary legal requirements, but we'll leave that aside here as you've found somebody and the landlord is happy with that). Given the short notice, etc. I think the landlord is being quite decent to return his deposit.

The tenant is also liable for any costs incurred during his time there, so ESB, GAs, Bins, Internet, TV, etc.

However, if he has paid the bin charges for the year, then he should be entitled to a refund of the money, excluding the weeks which he lived at the property. But that's not your concern; he paid the landlord, not you, so he should discuss it with the landlord.

Oh, and definitely don't have any contact with your former housemate. His issue is with the landlord, not you.

Btw, you could also try contacting threshold and ask for their advice regarding the situation and his refusal to pay the bills.