Court sentenced me to refund locksmith fee

Kangaroolala

So yesterday I went to small claim court. Ironically I was not given an opportunity to defend myself. The one who was lying all the way through won the case. The judge was an old man, basically he just checked my rental lease and told me that I actually couldn't sublet one room of the house to the woman. Hence I couldn't even charge the woman anything no matter what she did.

Five months ago, I post what happened to me after I rented a room to an Uruguayan woman from Jan to Feb. It was a total nightmare due to her abusive madness and unstable mental status. I was assaulted by her in the house after I served her a termination notice in February. From then on, she refused to move out and repetitively threatened to sue me in Small Claim Court.

On 29th of Feb, she refused to move out at the said time. As it was the last day of the month, I had people coming over to view the room. It was really urgent as the next day I need to pay the whole rent for the house. She locked herself in the room and refused to leave or let me show the room to anyone. (a good friend from Boards.ie came to the house to support me. I am very grateful to him)

So I had to apologise to those people who came to view the room and let them left without checking the room. We were sitting in the kitchen and waited for her to move out herself. The maniac woman even called garda over and lied about her being threatened to move out from the house. She knows how to attract attention in a dramatic way.

In the end, she aggressively moved out from the house, and took away all the keys, and locked the room she lived in. She left and threatened that she won't return the keys and left with a big victory evil twisted smile on her face.

So I was unable to access the room she locked as she took away the keys with her. My friend noticed the window of the room was wide open in the rain. This could lead damage to the room. There is nothing to do but calling a locksmith to change the lock. I also need to inspect the room for any potential risk. For the security concern, I also got the front door lock changed. It cost me €135 to get all those done. That was a day wasted on this disgusting nasty sick woman.

If you were me you would also deduct the cost of locksmith from her remaining deposit right? Not to mention all the stress and anxiety that evil woman caused. I am more than reasonable for just deducting the locksmith fee. She must come from hell and was assigned by devil to hurt kind people. Actually she really looks like an evil demon.

I refunded the remaining deposit after deducting the outstanding bills the cost of locksmith that night. At least she is out of the house and I don't need to see her ugly filthy face again.

But I was wrong, the evil returned by paying the Small Claim Court to send a letter of returning the locksmith cost which I deducted from the deposit. The day I got the letter, I sent the letter of disputing the claim to the small claim court. I DON'T owe the woman anything. She took aways all the keys purposefully. It was 8th of March.

In April, she bought a solicitor writing me a letter for refunding her the locksmith cost and threatened to bring me to court.

On 25th of May, I got another letter from Small Claim Court, it says that I need to send her the money I deducted for locksmith cost or I might need to be summoned in the court for hearing. I was shocked as I did diluting the claim with 3 pages of statement and proofs of why she forced my hands to change the locks.

So i made a phone call to the small claim court to ask what was happening. They told me they never received my letter. It was my own lack of experience that I didn't know it should be registered. I sent the letter in a normal way without register. The evil power of the evil woman worked again here. How can my letter got lost on the way to small claim court?

So I paid another €15 to appeal the case, filling all those different applications and also went to peace commissioners to get the proof and signature. This time I post letters with register. €20 for postages and envelopes cost. Another afternoon got wasted on this nasty woman.

The hearing was yesterday afternoon, 27th of July. We waited 1.5 hours in the cold court room No.8 and finally came to this ridiculous case. She shamelessly lied in front the judge about how she was frightened that was why she took away all the keys when moving out This doesn't make any sense. But the old judge was not into finding out the truth and exposing the shameless liar.

When it was my turn to speak, the judge only asked to check the rental lease. It was the old lease from Feb 2019 to Feb 2020. My landlord verbally agreed to let me sublet the extra rooms in the house and pay him the total rent each month. I can decide who to rent to. And in my new lease from March 2020, the new lease was updated to allow me to sublet.

However, in the old lease, the subletting rule was not updated, I didn't even read the lease myself carefully. If I knew this earlier then I can be well prepared and let the landlord to update the lease or write me a proof. As I have been subletting the rooms to housemates from 2018 since I moved into the house.

The judge spent 15 seconds to check the lease and read out the 'not allowed to sublet rule' then made the decision of forcing me return the locksmith fee cost to her.

I felt so helpless as I was not even allowed to show the judge my email proof with the landlord of noticing him about the existence of that woman. Apparently the judge didn’t care about what happened. The evil woman got no punishment at all for what she had done! This was not a fair decision that judge made. What I wanted was her apology for being abusive towards me. But I got none back and I have to pay for her faults! Sometimes justice doesn’t necessarily exist in the court. It is all up to the judge, if he prefers a Caucasian woman than an Asian lady, what I can only do here is to set peace with my frustration and forgive!

What I had experienced was very exceptional as a lunatic insane nasty woman like her should end up in mental hospital or jail instead of stepping her feet out the normal society to mess around.

I have learnt my lesson, I will read the contract very carefully before I need to sign any important contracts. What's more, be a warrior, stay strong and continuing loving this world and be kind to the people around me!

ArthurG

Can anyone give me a synopsis?

endacl

ArthurG wrote: »

Can anyone give me a synopsis?

Stuff happened, then some other stuff. Somebody was bonkers. OP is unhappy with outcome.

DavyD_83

ArthurG wrote: »

Can anyone give me a synopsis?

OP sublet a room he had no right to, things went bad, OP feels hard drive by (and may have cried). Judge applied law rather than listen to OPs sob story.
Outrage ensued.

Kangaroolala

I felt better after writing it out.

Wheety

ArthurG wrote: »

Can anyone give me a synopsis?

It's really not that long to read.


To the OP, I say just move on from this now. I'm not sure if you can appeal but do you really want to go through it all again? Pay her the money and forget about her. She's, hopefully, out of your life now. She's somone else's problem and she will get her comeuppance at some stage.


Don't waste any more time or stress on her.

endacl

Kangaroolala wrote: »

I felt better after writing it out.

Do you own, or have access to, a pen and some paper?

SharpShoot

Sublet illegally or not, why does the OP have to pay back a person who stole the keys to the house and who was then charged the locksmith fee to replace the keys and locks ?

Kangaroolala

Thank you Wheety for your comfort.

kilburn

To be fair there was a very long thread on this when op was going through hell with the tenant.

Lots of advice was given by many posters.

Kangaroolala

Hey Endacl, I do own a pen and paper. But I am more used to write it on laptop.

Kangaroolala

Hey Sharpshoot, the landlord agreed verbally for me to subletting the house but forgot to update the subletting rules in the lease.

Kangaroolala

Hi Kilburn, I did listen to the kind advice given to me. However, the las is too cruel here.

Tell me how

Op, I am glad you feel better after writing this out.

It seems both you and the woman who rented the room have invested significant time and money (solicitor fees) both of you probably doing so on the point of 'principle'. All over E135.

Pay the E135, put this behind you and move on. You will feel better once you do so I expect.

Wheety

SharpShoot wrote: »

Sublet illegally or not, why does the OP have to pay back a person who stole the keys to the house and who was then charged the locksmith fee to replace the keys and locks ?

Because the judge said so.


I don't agree with it and it is unfair but what should the OP do? Refuse to pay and go through more hassle as you can be sure the tenant will not let the OP away with it.


Or should they appeal? After a quick Google, you have to appeal to the circuit court. I'd say that judge will go by the legalities too. It's not in the contract that they could sublet.


As much as it feels like an injustice, the best course of action is probably to just pay up and move on. Have the landlord change the wording of the lease and do some research on your next tenant and hopefully they turn out to be a lovely person.

nuac

Mod
I agree with Wheety. Closed