Looking for advice from a knowledgeable landlord

tuisginideach

I have registered with irishlandlord.com but 3 days on, am still awaiting approval of registration. PRTB don't advise on individual cases. Don't want to fork out for solicitor's advice so hoping someone can help me here.

Have been renting out my original home for no. of years - all registered, taxed etc. All happy. Most of the groups of tenants I have had over the 15 years have stayed for 2 or 3 years - very happily.

Had same 4 tenants in house 2010-2013. 2013 - 2014, 2 moved out as finished college and tenants X and Y moved in. All well.
Summer 2014, original 2 tenants finished college, moved out, Y moved out, X asked & begged to be allowed stay on and take lease.

X got 3 new tenants, a friend and two unknowns and signed lease on their behalf with me and in their presence.

Now 7 months into lease, X and friend are moving out for 'personal reasons'.

Am I right in thinking that the tenants can really do whatever they want and hard luck on the landlord????

They want to sublet. Again, am I right in thinking that (a) they may only do that if I give written permission; if I don't give permission, they can terminate the lease with no penalty and (b) if I do give permission and they sublet, they are responsible for any non-payment of rent/bills/damage etc caused by the sublettees (how do you enforce that without going to court????)

I understand I can use their deposit to make up for lost income between the end of their paid rent and finding new tenants. What if the other 2 tenants aren't comfortable with prospective tenants - how long can I give them to find alternatives?

If I don't give permission to sublet and the lease is then terminated by them without penalty, can I still take the missed income from their deposits? And what about the 2 who hadn't intended moving out - do they get penalised as well by losing part of their deposit? (Maybe I should have got them to pay their deposits to X and got her to give me 1 deposit - then it would be her problem and not mine ... too late now.:()

Many thanks for any advice ... and pls ... I don't need any smart comments re landlords -- I'm looking for genuine advice from people who understand the situation.

Mrs OBumble

I think you've got a pretty good handle on the subletting / permission requirements, and also the possible liabilities and consequences of sub-letting.

What I would suggest is not getting too hung up about "Am I right in thinking that the tenants can really do whatever they want and hard luck on the landlord????" - it will just make you bitter and twisted, when with a little flexibility rather than legalism you can probably get back to a stable situation again.

Personally I'd be looking for X and Y to re-assign the lease, rather than to sublet. Ie they move out, you do an inspection and work out where you stand damage-wise, and then the replacement tenants move in on a new lease. To acheive this, I'd talk to the other two tenants about what they want to do. Options are basically

1) They are liable for the whole rent (Probably they won't like that ... but maybe they will - I've been a tenant in that situation and was happy to pay more and have a spare room), OR

2) They find someone (acceptable to you) to take over the leave from the ones who are leaving .. and they are liable for the whole rent for the time between X and friend leaving and the new ones moving in. OR

3) They leave too (but with no penalty to them - it's hardly their fault), and you find new tenants. The first two are liable for the rent between move-out date and when your replacement tenants move in. I'm not sure that this is what their deposit is technically for - but pragmatically keeping it is the easiest way to do the cash transfer.

We could argue legalities about how under Part IV they're entitled to stay - and they are, but with that right comes responsibility for the whole rent.

But my experienced view is that you need to think pragmatically about the fastest way to get happy tenants paying full rent.

antoinolachtnai

That is very good advice. I would also say that you would be better off finding a way to let them go and picking your own new tenants rather than having them market your property and choose your new tenant for you. You might get them to agree to pay your marketing costs out of the deposit. If they do all this you can give them a reference.

Try to keep everything on as good terms as possible and try and keep your rental void as small as possible is the main thing.

the_syco

tuisginideach wrote: »

X asked & begged to be allowed stay on and take lease.

X got 3 new tenants, a friend and two unknowns and signed lease on their behalf with me and in their presence.

On this; are they all on the lease with X, or did X sublet the property to them with your permission?

tuisginideach wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that the tenants can really do whatever they want and hard luck on the landlord????

tuisginideach wrote: »

the other 2 tenants aren't comfortable with prospective tenants - how long can I give them to find alternatives?

If I'm reading this correctly, and they've all signed the lease (and none are subletting), then the 2 left will either have to pay the rent the full rent, or sublet with your permission?

tuisginideach wrote: »

the lease is then terminated by them

As above, if they are all on the same lease, everyone is liable, and the two left will have to foot the bill. If X has subletted the place, then you can make it a condition that X gets his deposit back if the house is empty and not damaged; maybe easier to rent the full house, than multiple messy sublets.

=-=

End game; try to get everyone on one big lease, as subletting can be messy as you may end up with two people in the house that have no lease with you, that you can't contact, and who aren't paying rent. Yes, worse case scenario, but unless you trust the tenants, I wouldn't go the sublet route.

tuisginideach

Thanks for all those replies - they make sense and confirm what I felt was probably the best course of action myself - move them all on and start again. I feel sorry for the two left who are young students and will not be happy to move out but I doubt they could afford the rent on their own.

In reply to the_Syco, I have always operated a system where one person (tenant X in this case) signs the lease (with the other tenants names on it) and takes responsibility to be our contact person. I have always had a perfectly good relationship with my tenants and as I said above four lots of them out of the 15 years were there for at least two years and and some rolled over over a 4 year period. So X didn't sublet it - she was our contact person and signature on the lease, but all are named on the lease.

I am positive that the two young students currently there couldn't afford to pay the rent on their own. I would have no problem with them staying if they could, or as part of a happy foursome but the difficulty is finding suitable tenants. If I do not give written permission to sublet, the lease is then terminated automatically and those students must leave too - is that right?

Thanks very much for your assistance.

Arbiter of Good Taste

tuisginideach wrote: »

Thanks for all those replies - they make sense and confirm what I felt was probably the best course of action myself - move them all on and start again. I feel sorry for the two left who are young students and will not be happy to move out but I doubt they could afford the rent on their own.

In reply to the_Syco, I have always operated a system where one person (tenant X in this case) signs the lease (with the other tenants names on it) and takes responsibility to be our contact person. I have always had a perfectly good relationship with my tenants and as I said above four lots of them out of the 15 years were there for at least two years and and some rolled over over a 4 year period. So X didn't sublet it - she was our contact person and signature on the lease, but all are named on the lease.

I am positive that the two young students currently there couldn't afford to pay the rent on their own. I would have no problem with them staying if they could, or as part of a happy foursome but the difficulty is finding suitable tenants. If I do not give written permission to sublet, the lease is then terminated automatically and those students must leave too - is that right?

Thanks very much for your assistance.

Why do you think it will be a problem for the remaining two to find suitable tenants? At the end of the last lease, one of my tenants wanted to move out. The other wanted to stay, so I agreed for her to find a suitable replacement provided she insisted on the same criteria as me - landlord and employer reference, etc, etc. These were sent to me and only then did I approve the new tenant. Eight months later and everything is great.

The_Morrigan

Folks there are a few issues in some of the terminology used here.

Having a named person on a lease and having them source the rest of the tenants is not subletting, it creates a licencee situation. If only one person is a party to the lease they are the only tenant. If all tenants are named on the lease or any addendum documents that supplement the original lease then they are all tenants (they should also all execute the document as they are named parties)

Subletting is where the original tenant leaves and the replacement tenant sublets from the initial tenant for the remainder of the lease making the initial tenant still responsible to the landlord legally. In reality the replacement tenant just takes over the lease and th original tenant walks off into the sunset discharged of their obligations.

For good order sake any change to tenants should be documented, noting that with the RTA 2004 act they have legal rights anyway regardless of the lease.