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One tenant moving out of existing house-share

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  • 17-01-2019 11:53am
    #1
    jr86
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,930 ✭✭✭


    Hi there,

    My partner (not on this) is based up in Dublin, but is looking like she’ll be offered a job in Galway in the near future where she will be moving home to settle. It could happen anytime so she’s just looking to get some clarity on the ‘moving out’ situation

    She is based in a house-share with 3 others (didn’t know them moving in) and is in year 4 of a 6 year part 4 tenancy. They all moved in at the same time, and all their individual names are on the lease, and they are all co-tenants.

    I’ve looked around online (and on the lease) but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot out there on one tenant (not licensee) leaving an existing house-share, where the other tenants will remain in the house.

    Just a few quick ones if I may.

    1. When she is leaving is it just a case of giving her written notice to the landlord, and informing them of her intentions? Now, I know there are rules on notice periods given how long the tenant is in the house-share and I could see why these would be applicable when they are all leaving the house-share (and the place may need to be done up, cleaned, and 4 new tenants need to be sourced etc.) but is it the same when only one tenant is leaving? I can’t see a job hanging on 6-8 weeks while you serve out a notice. Given the Dublin rental market I’d expect a replacement could be sourced within the next day, never mind 2 months... Naturally as a courtesy to the existing HMs and agency she would be well prepared to give a month notice

    {As an aside someone I knew who was in a similar situation simply just left the house-share they were in, and the existing tenants just got someone they knew in to replace them. He never told his landlord or got his name removed from the lease (one tenant pays the rent on behalf of all of them, the same as in my partner’s place). To be honest, we want to go through the proper procedures here and just get this done as smoothly as possible}


    2. The old deposit chestnut. Obviously there are stories out there on landlords withholding deposits, and tenants not paying rent in the last month to offset the deposit and so on, but we’d like to just get some clarity on this. Is it a case of getting the deposit back directly off the agency? I’ve heard cases of the departing tenant just getting the deposit off the new replacement tenant. How do the agency calculate the deposit? Do they examine just her room? Or do they only do inspections for damages etc. when the whole tenancy is up, and just leave it to my partner to sort out now with new tenant/existing HMs?

    3. Getting the replacement tenant. Is this the responsibility of my partner? Well in theory anyway, I’d imagine in practice it’s generally the existing housemates. That said in Dublin I really cannot see this being an issue.


    4. Will the replacement tenant be entitled to tenant status? Or are they a licensee? If the latter, fine, as long as they are a licensee of the existing tenants. I don’t want a situation where my partner still acts as the ‘landlord’ in a sense to this new licensee until the overall tenancy agreement runs out. Would love some confirmation on this.


    Just to note it is an agency she is dealing with, so I’d expect them to be more by the book so to speak than some individual landlords may be, so any anecdotes about particular landlords making any exceptions or adopting their own practices may not apply.

    Thanks for reading, and many thanks in advance.


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