What happens if you pull out of 1 year lease?

_underscore

Hi

I'm not looking for legal advice here.

I'm just trying to figure out what is the norm response from a landlord when a tenant pulls out of a rental agreement early.

I have 6 months left on my lease but planning on leaving to move home for the next six months, as I don't really need a place in Dublin.

I'm guessing the most the landlord can do (solicitor by trade :-/) is pursue me through the courts for the outstanding amount.

Currently I have about 300 euro to my name. After christmas i'll be completely broke. So it's pretty much a case of blood from a stone.

What happens in the case of court judgements? Anybody ever experience this?

Do landlords actually pursue people or just let them off as they know they may not get anything?

Thanks.

SteoL

_underscore wrote: »

Hi

I'm not looking for legal advice here.

I'm just trying to figure out what is the norm response from a landlord when a tenant pulls out of a rental agreement early.

I have 6 months left on my lease but planning on leaving to move home for the next six months, as I don't really need a place in Dublin.

I'm guessing the most the landlord can do (solicitor by trade :-/) is pursue me through the courts for the outstanding amount.

Currently I have about 300 euro to my name. After christmas i'll be completely broke. So it's pretty much a case of blood from a stone.

What happens in the case of court judgements? Anybody ever experience this?

Do landlords actually pursue people or just let them off as they know they may not get anything?

Thanks.

Depends on the LL I'd say. AFAIK LL can keep your deposit AND chase you for the rent for the remainder of the lease which in your case is 6 months.

Bigcheeze

generally an experienced landlord is smart enough to know that trying to keep a tenant that doesn't want to be there is a bad idea and they're better off just getting a new tenant in.....particularly in a healthy rental market like Dublin city centre.

In theory, the landlord can pursue you. In reality they probably just keep the deposit and forget about it, or some will return the deposit.

edanto

You could increase your chances of keeping the landlord happy and getting your deposit back by offering to help them get a new tenant as soon as possible.

You may know someone who wants to move in, or else offer to put up ads. Unlikely they'll take your offer up, but they'll appreciate it.

At the very least, offer to make the place available (and clean and tidy) for visits by new tenants so they don't have the place empty.

Saaron

We recently went through this with a couple who were sharing with us, they decided to pull out of the lease 5/6 months early without giving appropriate notice to the LL.

Luckily she has been a LL for many years and knew from experience that it's better to get rid of them when they want to leave as you're less likely to cause a row or anything worse. She even gave them back their deposit as it means we can (after Xmas) begin to look for new people without the added hassle of trying to deal with out previous housemates.

The best thing to do would be to talk to your Landlord and be honest. Don't try make up an excuse as to why you have to leave (which is what our housemates did and in turn could cause more problems). If your Landlord is somewhat decent they should understand that you can no longer afford to live there and should realise it's easier just to find new tenants rather than go after someone who doesn't have much money.