Seeking rent owed - wary of tenant fleeing

Eviction proceedings began back in January due to non-payment of rent and valid notice was served to be gone by middle of April. COVID-19 put a stop to all that for 3 months, and they confessed that nowhere was allowing viewings of property anyway, so RTB proceedings were commenced.

No rent incoming since then. Tenant has been less than perfect in terms of communication. A mediation hearing with the RTB last week resulted in an agreement that the tenant would vacate before the end of next month, which is exactly the original eviction date + 3 months. This agreement is legally binding, once the 10 day cooling off period expires.

By the time this date rolls around, the money owed will be almost €6,000. The tenant is a non-national with family abroad and the only thing keeping them here is there job. They were laid off at the beginning of the emergency period with no guarantee of the job being there when the company reopens. I only found this out after weeks of non-communication and the rent not being paid.

The sudden agreement to be gone by the original date + three months leads me to believe that they were biding their time with the COVID payments and are planning on heading back home to their own country. Up until that point it had been "I'm looking, but nobody wants a new housemate with the virus". All of a sudden, it's "okay, I'll leave in 5 weeks".

Am I snookered here in terms of them leaving without paying the money owed? Is there anything which can be done before they leave or must you wait until they have gone and stopped communicating? Can you get a determination notice in absentia and is that actually worth anything?

martinr5232

Id say it will be a case of thanking your lucky stars that they only owe six grand and they actually leave.

davindub

Here or abroad, before taking any legal action you need to consider if the person can pay any awards made against them.

You can enforce a Irish judgement throughout the EU.

BrokenArrows

Your first concern is getting them out.
If they pull a runner after that then it's up to you to consider whether it's worth the hassle and legal expense in trying to get them to pay. And answer is probably that you should just write it off as bad luck.

dennyk

Having them out of your place and owing six grand is better than having them remain in your place without paying rent indefinitely while owing more than six grand. Yes, they might be leaving the country, and if they do, you'll be out of luck (as it would certainly not be worth the cost of filing a lawsuit internationally against someone who's probably judgement-proof anyway), but that's one of the risks of being a landlord, unfortunately. You can try to get a determination order against them or even take them to District Court over the arrears now, but if they really are planning to leave the country, they'll likely just ignore any such actions anyway, and even if you somehow got a judgement against them before they left, there's likely no chance of enforcing it, so you'd likely just be throwing good money after bad.

Cuddlesworth

davindub wrote: »

Here or abroad, before taking any legal action you need to consider if the person can pay any awards made against them.

You can enforce a Irish judgement throughout the EU.

I mean, its pretty damm hard to get a Irish judgement enforced.

Peregrinus

It's hard to get any money judgment enforced against a defendant who doesn't have a lot of cash or assets, and people who have cash or assets mostly aim to buy rather than to rent, so cash-and-asset-poor people are overrepresented in the tenant population.

That's not a flaw in the legal system; it's just a characteristic of the business that residential landlords are in. The judgment you really want to get, and to have enforced, is the order for vacant possession of the premises. Getting arrears of rent would be icing on the cake but don't expect it more than occasionally. A proportion of tenancies go bad, and periods in respect of which you can't realistically recover rent even though the propety is let are a feature of this business and need to be factored in to your overall business plan.

davindub

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I mean, its pretty damm hard to get a Irish judgement enforced.

Yes, and apart from the ability of the tenant to pay, the sheriff needs to be motivated to collect...which is probably not the case for most awards against tenants.

Thanks for all of the advice, folks.

martinr5232

Deleted User wrote:

Thanks for all of the advice, folks.

Best of luck with it.

Marcusm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I mean, its pretty damm hard to get a Irish judgement enforced.

It might be easier to get it enforced elsewhere, eg with the UK’s bailiff system, but still requires the debtor to have assets or income.

sk8board

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t you claim the €6k loss of income against your tax bill? Or perhaps via specific LL home insurance

Baby01032012

sk8board wrote: »

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t you claim the €6k loss of income against your tax bill? Or perhaps via specific LL home insurance

Tax bill? If there’s no income there’s hardly going to be any tax...don’t know what you were thinking would be set against what

sk8board

Baby01032012 wrote: »

Tax bill? If there’s no income there’s hardly going to be any tax...don’t know what you were thinking would be set against what

The other 6 months of the year ...

bigpink

Can you sell the debt?

Peregrinus

sk8board wrote: »

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t you claim the €6k loss of income against your tax bill? Or perhaps via specific LL home insurance

The 6k is a reduction in income, and therefore will lead to a reduction in income tax of (6k x taxpayer's marginal rate of income tax).

the_syco

Deleted User wrote: »

By the time this date rolls around, the money owed will be almost €6,000. The tenant is a non-national with family abroad and the only thing keeping them here is there job. They were laid off at the beginning of the emergency period with no guarantee of the job being there when the company reopens. I only found this out after weeks of non-communication and the rent not being paid.

TBH, him leaving you without paying €6k may be the cheapest option. As opposed to spending more money trying to evict him, and losing more rent. Perhaps let it be known that if he stays in Ireland, you'll chase him down for every cent he owes?

At least you'd be able to rent it out again, should he leave.

redarmyblues

I forget the details and an open to correction but I recall that you can get an Ex Parte judgement in the district court, using a solicitor. That shouldn't be that expensive. The amount of the judgement accrues interest at a pretty swinging vig for about 5 years and what you do then is a property search every say 8 years and if he owns anything here when you do a search, you get the judgement attached to the property. Treat it like a prize bond, probably never going to come up but who knows.

The RTB can get a judgement against a tenant in the district court and trace said person in Ireland if they are still here using their RSI number and seek repayment. I am not sure how well this works in practice.