Annoyed and confused

scholarsmate1

Hi guys will try make it short. Rented a property through an estate agent on the condition certain things would be done ie mattresses replaced, premises painted plus others. Received an email the following week to say landlord will do the work. I paid a deposit and none of the work done. No contact from agent for over a week. Now today electricity is cut off because previous tenants never paid bill and agent never put my name down as being the new tenant. There are a list of issues he has not done and at this stage I'm disheartened and don't want to live in the house. I've signed a 12 month lease. Have I anyway out of it without losing my deposit. I'm a father of 2 young boys and want to create a nice home for them.

Graces7

scholarsmate1 wrote: »

Hi guys will try make it short. Rented a property through an estate agent on the condition certain things would be done ie mattresses replaced, premises painted plus others. Received an email the following week to say landlord will do the work. I paid a deposit and none of the work done. No contact from agent for over a week. Now today electricity is cut off because previous tenants never paid bill and agent never put my name down as being the new tenant. There are a list of issues he has not done and at this stage I'm disheartened and don't want to live in the house. I've signed a 12 month lease. Have I anyway out of it without losing my deposit. I'm a father of 2 young boys and want to create a nice home for them.

Please call Threshold; they will if need be call the agent or write etc. Good luck

L1011

You need to contact the energy suppliers yourself, the agent actually cannot do this for you in the first place.

Eldarion

L1011 wrote: »

You need to contact the energy suppliers yourself, the agent actually cannot do this for you in the first place.

Agreed that it's the tenant's responsibility but the general rule is that the Landlord or Agent requests the accounts to be switched from the old tenant to themselves in the interim, and then from themselves to the new tenant. This generally works out as less hassle as there's no dealing with disconnections and reconnection fees etc.

L1011

Eldarion wrote: »

Agreed that it's the tenant's responsibility but the general rule is that the Landlord or Agent requests the accounts to be switched from the old tenant to themselves in the interim, and then from themselves to the new tenant. This generally works out as less hassle as there's no dealing with disconnections and reconnection fees etc.

The landlord or agent cannot "put" someone else's name on an account like you're suggesting though - if that was possible, I could randomly tell the ESB to bill someone else for my house.

New tenants responsibility is to get on to their chosen supplier with a meter reading.

Eldarion

L1011 wrote: »

The landlord or agent cannot "put" someone else's name on an account like you're suggesting though - if that was possible, I could randomly tell the ESB to bill someone else for my house.

New tenants responsibility is to get on to their chosen supplier with a meter reading.

I never said as such. The transfer is initiated by the leaving tenant by requesting from the utility company that the service be transferred to the Landlord/Agent. Utility company then contacts the Landlord/Agent for their agreement on the dates, final meter readings etc. All goes through. Then same exact thing happens between the Landlord/Agent and the new tenant whenever they move in.

Source: Done this 6 times now.

Supercell

OP call Electric Ireland or whoever and say you are a new tenant and give them a starting reading . I had to do this many times before and there was never a problem. I remember once there were opened bills of over €800 from the previous tenant in the hallway, judging by their names, I suspect they absconded back to their native lands and collection was going to be impossible. I remember in that occasion there were letters marked final warning etc to other people which i just marked no longer at this address without opening and popped back in the nearest post box and that was it.

Paco Rodriguez

Supercell wrote: »

judging by their names, I suspect they absconded back to their native lands and collection was going to be impossible.

say hello to the 1970 's for me

L1011

Eldarion wrote: »

I never said as such.

You did:

Eldarion wrote: »

the general rule is that the Landlord or Agent requests the accounts to be switched from the old tenant to themselves in the interim, and then from themselves to the new tenant.

It is the tenant's job to contact their chosen supplier - they have zero obligation to use whatever supplier there was previously, even if the LL could ask them to "switch" the account.