Advice needed on early termination of Lease

BBMcQ

Myself and the OH are renting a ground floor apartment since Feb 2010 with our last month's rent due next week. Since moving into the apartment we have had problems with damp and condensation (first flagged via email to letting agent in March 2010).

The landlord's builder re-insulated the bedroom wall, for which we moved out of the apartment for 2 weeks last May, but the problem of moisture and mold spores has now transferred to the floor. We emailed again in October, and the builder who did the job on the wall, told us that it was a "lifestyle" issues and very common in ground floor apartments where you can't leave windows open etc and there is no outdoor space for drying clothes. Since then we have left the windows open, even during the cold spell and ramped up mega usage of our dryer to dry the clothes, only airing them in the apartment. The problem of damp and mold persisted on the floor and on the legs of our bed and bedside locked. My girlfriend was subsequently out sick with bronchitis in mid-december. Since december we have endured empty promises of dehumidifiers and another report from the same builder saying there's nothing wrong with the apartment.

I have two questions basically:
1) Can we request that the lease be terminated (all-but immediately) and move out into an apartment fit for the purpose intented?
2) Would we expect to run into problems receiving our deposit back?
3) Is it common for tenants to worry that nothing is going to be done by the landlord in the above situations as we are running into our last month's renting.

Thanks for any advice, I have a meeting in 2 hours with the letting agent/builder and any ammo would be most appreciated.

Sorry for any spelling mistakes in the above, I'm in a bit of a rush!

mathepac

There is no way to type in a quick response to your queries, but the answers should all be here - http://www.threshold.ie/page.asp?menu=70&page=240

BBMcQ

mathepac wrote: »

There is no way to type in a quick response to your queries, but the answers should all be here - http://www.threshold.ie/page.asp?menu=70&page=240

Thanks, have it printed out and ready to go, was hoping for some advice from experience..?

Treehouse72

Having stuck it out this long it seems a bit odd trying to get out of your final month. Of course I understand why you want to, but if it's hassle and might jeopardise your reference/deposit I wonder if it's worth it.

BTW, one things this story shows is the dangers of renting in Spring/Summer when the weather is nice and you only start noticing problems once Autumn rolls round.

BBMcQ

Your damn right.

We want to get out if this place because it's affecting my girlfriends health. Really frustrated at this stage.