Landlord Notice of Termination

Kaleb2015

Hello, my landlord on Thursday gave me notice to end my tenancy. I’ve been here with my family 3 years and 9 months. What I want to know is can the landlord give notice with a reason to end the tenancy like this, notice attached. I was told that he doesn’t have to give a reason when the part 4 is finished. He gave it to me and said that he’s doing it for family reasons but obviously didn’t want to put that on the notice so that he could rent the house out again right away and for a higher price. We only pay 950 and the average in our area is 1200-1500. He obviously doesn’t know that he can only put it up by 4% with a new tenant. We have had trouble with him doing repairs for years, he doesn’t want doing anything so I got sick of it and gave him an official notice of repairs in mid February. He done a boiler service which is still under warranty so was free. He replaced the dryer but he would need a new one anyway for the next tenant as well as a fire blanket. There are a lot of major things I put on the notice that he hasn’t touched since so I think this is his way of avoiding having to do them. I just want to know if I have any comeback and does he still have to give me first refusal in this case if he rents it again as we where ideal tenants.

James 007

Sometimes there are things that you could live with and things that you could live without. It seems that you have indeed rubbed him up the wrong way. Thats all fine if the market is in your favour, if not you put yourself in a difficult situation. Giving him a list, fine if a washing machine is broken, but to say change light bulbs or paint rooms, then this is something that you could take on yourself.

I think he does need to state in his formal notice that he intends to rent it out to XXX family member etc. so you could argue the letter doesnt fully stipulate this.

Don't worry he is fully aware of the 4% RPZ threshold too.

Samuel T. Cogley

No reasons needed if he's simply not allowing it to roll over to a further part IV. Not commenting on the notice etc.

Pkiernan

Also, the start of a new tenancy allows for compounded 4% rates since rent was last raised.

RTB calculator is clear on this.

dennyk

The proper way to end a Part 4 tenancy is to submit notice timed to end on or shortly after the day that the Part 4 tenancy would end. Seems like he's done that properly in this case, and he's given you the correct amount of notice for your length of tenancy, so it would seem to be a valid notice.

Since it is at the end of a Part 4 tenancy, the landlord does not need to provide a reason for termination, and you don't have right of first refusal if he re-lets it. He is bound by the RPZ restrictions restricting how much he can raise the asking rent, but it's not a fixed 4% in the case of a new tenancy; he can effectively increase it 4% per year (compounded) since the time of the last rent review (or the time your tenancy began if he never conducted a rent review). The RTB has a calculator here that you can use to calculate the maximum rent he could charge. You can always keep an eye out on Daft or whatnot to see what he lists the place for, and you're free to notify his new tenant of what you were paying in rent if he is overcharging them; they'd be free to go to the RTB and could likely get their overpayments refunded as well as their rent lowered to the legal level.

Kaleb2015

Does anyone know if I leave earlier than the notice period can the landlord keep my deposit? The girl next door bought her own house and is moving in the next 3 weeks and her landlord might let us in there but would have to be right after she’s gone.

dennyk

Legally, you must give your landlord 56 days of notice to end the tenancy on your initiative, based on your current length of tenancy, and you would be responsible for rent through that period or until the landlord re-lets the property (or until the landlord's own notice period expires on 12/8), whichever comes first. Your landlord could retain the deposit (or a portion of it) to cover any actual outstanding rent due, but can't just keep the entire thing regardless of the amount "just because" you terminated early. You are still free to physically vacate the property anytime before your notice period is up, of course, you just might have to keep paying the rent there until the end of your notice period.

Practically speaking, you can end your tenancy earlier than either notice period by mutual agreement with the landlord, and most smart landlords will be more than happy to let a tenant out of their tenancy with a shorter notice period if it means getting possession of the property back sooner and getting the tenant out without them overholding or causing other problems, especially if it's because the tenant has already arranged someplace else to live. It'd be quite foolish on the landlord's part to refuse and thus cause you to lose your new lease opportunity just so they can squeeze a couple more rent payments out of you, as if you can't find anywhere else to live in the interim, you aren't likely to just move out onto the streets when the time comes, and then the landlord may have to spend months or longer trying to legally remove you. Just give your landlord a ring and explain the circumstances and odds are they'll happily let you terminate when you need to.

Kaleb2015

My landlord as I said is ending the tenancy. I have two questions. What I want to know is does a spelling mistake of the surname affect it? Also my wife moved into the address a month before I did, I didn't move in until we got married which was the following month. The first contract was in her maiden name and wasn't ammended with her marriage name and mine until the following year. Can he still have served the notice when he did or should he have waited until the following month when I moved in or the following year when the contract was ammended? I can't find the first two contracts at the minute but both had to be given to the social welfare at the time so I'm sure I can get them off them.

dennyk

Not sure what your aim is here, but your time and effort would be better spent working on securing another place to live, honestly. You aren't going to win a challenge based solely on an obvious typo in your name on the notice, and the tenancy would have begun when your wife first moved in; you being added on her tenancy as her spouse doesn't restart the Part 4 period.

If moving into the place next door is still an option, you should bring that up with your landlord as soon as possible to see if he'd be amenable to you ending your tenancy early; as I said, he will probably be more than happy to oblige since it gets him vacant possession in good time with no hassle.

Experience_day

Kaleb2015 wrote: »

My landlord as I said is ending the tenancy. I have two questions. What I want to know is does a spelling mistake of the surname affect it? Also my wife moved into the address a month before I did, I didn't move in until we got married which was the following month. The first contract was in her maiden name and wasn't ammended with her marriage name and mine until the following year. Can he still have served the notice when he did or should he have waited until the following month when I moved in or the following year when the contract was ammended? I can't find the first two contracts at the minute but both had to be given to the social welfare at the time so I'm sure I can get them off them.

Good God, no wonder Landlords don't want to operate in this environment...

Kaleb2015

dennyk wrote: »

Not sure what your aim is here, but your time and effort would be better spent working on securing another place to live, honestly. You aren't going to win a challenge based solely on an obvious typo in your name on the notice, and the tenancy would have begun when your wife first moved in; you being added on her tenancy as her spouse doesn't restart the Part 4 period.

If moving into the place next door is still an option, you should bring that up with your landlord as soon as possible to see if he'd be amenable to you ending your tenancy early; as I said, he will probably be more than happy to oblige since it gets him vacant possession in good time with no hassle.

Ive been down to all the letting agents in the town, there are only 2 houses in the area at the minute and both are out of our price. I went into the agents for next door but they said they can't do anything about it until they inspect the house after our neighbour moves out. He's not a reasonable man, if we get next door in the next 3 weeks we will have to say goodbye to our deposit and he will come after us for the remaining rent until the 12th of august.

Kaleb2015

Experience_day wrote: »

Good God, no wonder Landlords don't want to operate in this environment...

The landlord has made our lives miserable for the past 4 years. When my wife was pregnant on our second child we came to the top of the stairs to find downstairs engulfed in smoke from the boiler, he called over when we told him about it and he was really an ass about it. He left us having to send our then 2 and half year old to his nana for 3 months until he fixed it, it was over Christmas and the house was freezing. He said then come September he was putting the rent up and that was why. The element in the cooker stopped working and that was the same story. The microwave we had to replace ourselves because he wouldn't at the time and now he's expecting us to leave it there. The beds where full of mold and blood. The overflow drips constantly for the last 3 years and he refuses to fix it, it has turned the garden into a swamp. If something happens with the house obviously we are required to tell him but he does nothing if its not essential. I have a slipped disc, my wife is missing her arm, 2 of our children are in disability services so he's not making it easy on us. My wife ended up in hospital in October while pregnant on our third over him. I was stressing over him causing problems while my dad was in the hospital dying. He's a nasty piece of work. I would love to get out of here and not have to deal with him but obviously there is nowhere in our area to rent at the minute and what is there is way out of our price range. We have been good tenants up until now but he is forcing our hand in finding any solution we can to buy ourselves more time.

dennyk

Well, if you gave him notice yourself today, you'd only owe rent through July 5th at most, as your required notice period is only 56 days, and even that is only if he really is foolish enough not to let you out early and he isn't actually re-letting the place before then. He can't legally keep your deposit unless he has a legitimate reason to do so, which he won't if you pay all the rent owed and there aren't any damages to your current property beyond ordinary wear and tear; if he fails to return your deposit, you can pursue it via the RTB.

In the end, you'll just need to decide if it's worth possibly paying a month or so of double rent payments to move into a place you know is available and will suit you. If you try to challenge and overhold instead, you will be facing nothing but weeks or months of stress and you will eventually lose and be out the door one way or another anyway, quite possibly with no place to go and no good options available to you at all. Personally, I'd take the first choice every time.