Renewing rental contract for another year

aloooof

Just looking for some advice from someone more knowledgeable on the subject.

In short, myself and my gf moved into an apartment in May of last year, signing a 1 year lease. Recently, I got a mail from the EA asking if we are keen to renew the contract for another year.

We are currently seeking mortgage AIP, and would hope to have bought a house within the year of the contract.

It is our intention to stay but I am wondering what are the implications of signing another contract? In previous rentals, I have just continued paying rent on a rolling basis but that does not seem to be what the EA is seeking here, so this is new to me.

Would signing a new contract impact our notice period, if the landlord decided to issue notice? Equally, would we be liable for the remainder of the contract if we bought a house and decided to leave within, say, 6 months?

If anyone has any information / advice on the above, I'd really appreciate it.

Sarn

Just advise them that you want to stay on under a Part IV tenancy. That’s what we did when asked if we’d sign a fixed term lease.

aloooof

What would the benefits of this be, versus signing a new fixed term lease?

EDIT: I've just googled and found the following which I'm going to read:
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting_a_home/types_of_tenancy.html

Michael D Not Higgins

The estate agent gets a fee from the landlord for getting you to sign a new lease, they may try to advise you strongly to sign it. You would be better off not signing as it will give you the flexibility later in the year.

aloooof

So from reading the Citizen's Information, it seems to me that the benefit of Part 4 vs Fixed Term is that we would not have to go about re-assigning the lease if we wish to leave before the end of the term. (And I may lose my deposit if I cannot re-assign).

There doesn't appear to be any benefit to having a Fixed Term over Part 4 tho?

Michael D Not Higgins

aloooof wrote: »

So from reading the Citizen's Information, it seems to me that the benefit of Part 4 vs Fixed Term is that we would not have to go about re-assigning the lease if we wish to leave before the end of the term. (And I may lose my deposit if I cannot re-assign).

There doesn't appear to be any benefit to having a Fixed Term over Part 4 tho?

The only benefit is that the landlord cannot issue notice of termination during a fixed term (assuming there's no break clause in the lease and there's no other issue like rent not being paid).

dennyk

You're under no obligation to sign another fixed term lease; you now have security of tenancy under Part IV and the landlord can only end the tenancy for one of the allowed reasons under that part of the Act. If you may end up moving in less than a year depending on how your house hunting goes, I'd decline the EA's offer of a new fixed term lease; there's no reason to lock yourself into another fixed term and then have to deal with finding a subletter/assignee in addition to all the other stuff you'll be busy with if you have to leave early. Don't let the EA strong-arm you into signing one; they'll probably want you to in order to collect their commission from the landlord, but they can't force you to or kick you out if you refuse.

Do make sure you notify them that you are intending to remain in the property under Part IV, however. Citizens Information has a sample letter (Warning: Word document) that you can use as a template for this notification. Failure to notify them a month before your fixed-term tenancy ends doesn't invalidate your Part IV tenancy, but you could be responsible for any costs incurred by the landlord as a result, e.g. if they assumed you were leaving due to the lack of notice and they paid listing fees, cleaning service fees, etc. in advance to clean and relist the unit when they thought you'd be out.

aloooof

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've just informed the EA that we'd like to stay on under Part 4 so lets see. Fully expecting them to come back requesting we sign a new fixed-term contract.

Fian

aloooof wrote: »

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've just informed the EA that we'd like to stay on under Part 4 so lets see. Fully expecting them to come back requesting we sign a new fixed-term contract.

the main advantage is that you can give notice and terminate your lease under part IV more easily than if you sign a fixed term lease. There are really more or less no disadvantages.