Rented accommodation dodginess

Attol

So you move into a house, get a receipt for your deposit and rent then find your house on an auction site. What do you do? I'm an absolute tool for not getting all the contact details for my landlord. I have a name and a mobile number. I'm going to get his car reg next time I get the chance and I have a friend calling up the auction place on Monday or Tuesday posing as a potential buyer to get all the details. Also I'm going to ask the neighbours if they have a clue what's going on. I know I've ****ed up but I'm only 18 so I'm very inexperienced in all this. I paid cash btw. Worst case scenario, I'll be out by €300 for the deposit and some for the lost month. Before I do anything I'm going to try get all the facts straight with some detective work. Anyone have any tips about this or been in the situation themselves? Thanks!

kippy

Do you mean that the landlord has put the house up for sale?
If so, he should give you one months notice as to when the house gets sold. Then you'll get your deposit back and have a month to look for something.....
It may be worth asking the landlord what his plans are for the house-even if it is sold the prospectice buyers may want to keep a tennant anyway.
Have a chat to him next time you see him.

Attol

I moved in on Thursday. Thing is this wasn't mentioned when I moved in. I'm only here for a couple of months until August but I'm pretty sure the other tenants are here for longer. I don't want to alarm any of them until I'm sure of the facts. Just want to make sure I'm covered if anything does go wrong.

kippy

Do you mean that the landlord has put the house up for sale?

Can you clarify that this is is happening?
This happens all the time.....ask the landlord what his plans are.....he sould give notice if he wants ye out....and as I said just because there may be new owners does not mean ye will be told to leave.
Talk to the landlord. Outline your concerns.

Attol

Yeah, it's on a website for a reasonably well known estate agents. Thanks for easing my mind a bit. Since I'm very new to this whole renting business I'm a bit paranoid and unsure of all of this.

Arcadian

I'd assume your landlord didn't mention it because your only renting for a couple of months and are likely to be gone before the sale is completed anyway?

antoinolachtnai

Welcome to the wonderful world of property! First thing is: you're doing great. You sound sharper than most if you spotted your house in the estate agent's site. The lessons you learn from this episode will serve you for a lifetime. Before you know it you will own half-a-dozen houses on the SCR.

I am assuming you haven't signed a 12-month lease.

I wouldn't worry that much about it. You will almost definitely get your deposit back, because if he did sell, the landlord would be depending on getting you out to give vacant possession to the purchaser.

Also, the landlord is going to have to tell you what is going on. He is going to have to bring people to see the house and he will be depending on you to get the place into some sort of fit state. (He is entitled to bring a visitor to view the property in these circumstances, but he has to give reasonable notice.)

It could well be that the estate agent is screwing around. Seriously, it happens. My relations once had a well known dublin estate agent accept their offer on a house that wasn't actually for sale. Why mature adults would carry on like this is beyond me, but it does happen. It could even be that the landlord has the property on the market but has no intention of actually selling. That happens too.

I would ring up the agent, get the details (make sure of the house number) and if it is definitely the same house, ask for an appointment to come and see it. Ring yourself. Sound serious. Sound like you mean it, sound like you are a serial property investor. Don't worry, you can cancel the appointment later.

You are right to check your facts before doing anything. Whatever you do, don't ask the neighbours. The first rule of Property Club is don't talk to the neighbours. Otherwise all sort of crazy unwarranted rumours will start circulating.

If you really need to find out the contact details of the landlord, you can get them from the private rented tenancy board. But don't get involved in all that rigmarole until you really have to.

Even if he does sell, it would take a few weeks to close the sale, and you would be entitled to your statutory notice (1 month I think).

This stuff goes on all the time, it's just the fun of the fair. Let us know how you get on.

Victor

Eh... http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0421/dublin.html

antoinolachtnai

But this lady has already moved into the house, no?

Attol

Yeah, I live in the house already along with 4 other people who moved in at the same time. It's probably nothing just I got a huge fright especially with all the stories of rental scams in the papers lately. Thanks for the help. I just didn't realise it was common practice to have a house on the market despite it not being actively for sale. I'm a total property n00b.

antoinolachtnai

Well, it's not quite common practice, it's unusual, you are right to be a little perturbed, and I wouldn't do it myself, but it definitely does happen.

kc66

Theres nothing to worry about. You will have to get a months notice before having to move out and maybe another investor will buy the house and keep the existing tenants. He could be just sussing out the value of the house also? Who knows? Dont worry about it.

Mailman

The exact same thing happened to me.
A week after moving in I find the house up for sale on the internet.
Our landlady was a congenital liar. Claimed not to be the owner but working on the owner's behalf. Went to the land registry and established she was in fact the owner. Moved out there and then as I wanted security of tenure which she had no intention of offering me and what's more had been deceitful about it.

Mailman

If you want to get info. go to the land registry.
If you have problems with deposit then inform the revenue commissioners who will chase the landlord for undeclared income.
Also land registry will hold details of mortgage on property. lending institution would be very interested to hear if a property which has a home owner mortgage on it is being used for rental and may adjust interest rates.
The PRTB can fine up to €3000 for non-registration of the tenancy too.

kippy

Before doing any of what has been mentioned above-especially going to the revenu-have a chat to the landlord, outline your concerns.
Talk first befire making assumptions that the landlord is not claiming for the income. If you go away and report the landlord to various agencies without first talking to them you will, no doubt, be out of the house not matter what happens.
If you talk first then you will at least know what the landlord is doing. If you feel you are being blatently lied to then you may have to investigte getting out of there.
Kippy

antoinolachtnai

Land registry for houses in Dublin? It might work, but good luck with it. A very large proportion of houses in Dublin are unregistered.

Just as long as your landlord is a congenial liar and it doesn't go beyond that, i wouldn't necessarily worry too much about it. Granted it would be better if your landlord wasn't a liar at all, but in many parts of the country renting is a landlord's market.

Calina

Hi there.

My experience is that I've twice had leases ended by landlords deciding to put the house up for sale. A key way to gauge how serious he/she is about selling it is if he is looking for a viewing schedule. If he's not, then I'm not so sure that they're that enthused about selling.

Regardless, he *must* give you notice to quit the house if he sells up, and he *cannot* unreasonably withhold your deposit.

In your position, I would call him and tell him that you have seen a listing for the house for sale, and would like to know what kind of timeframe he is talking about . Nothing nasty or anything like that. Also remember, you are entitled to a tax credit for renting and the fact that he might not be registered does not morally compel you to forego that credit to prevent him from being caught.

antoinolachtnai - according to the Land Registry:

Approximately 90% of the land in Ireland is registered which represents 85% of titles

.

I'd also add that even in Dublin, the market is a tenant's one at the moment. Rents - if they are rising at all, which they frequently aren't - are rising below the rate of inflation. Where in the country is it a landlord's market? Ultimately, acceptance of duplicity on landlords and tenants is bad for business in the long term. I've rented accommodation in a number of countries ioutside Ireland and have never had anything like the grief that seems to be common here, and which I've had to deal with here. The way it works in Ireland, I suspect, is a major contributor to the desperation on the part of Irish people to own their own house, or at least be heavily in debt for most of their working lives to a bank on behalf of their "own" house.

Personally I wouldn't be all that enthused about doing business with someone who was lying to me and I now specifically ask a landlord at the start of our business relationship whether he/she intends to sell within the next two years or not as my experience is that when they do decide to sell, they forget all sorts of relevant information including prevailing legislation and the provisions of the lease they signed.

antoinolachtnai

First, in general terms, no one will buy a residential property with a sitting tenant (or at least they shouldn't). So tenants in this situation are in quite a strong position. If the landlord does try any funny stuff, it could be quite easy to gum up his sale by going to the courts and getting a restriction or lien on the property. Or just let the purchasers know what is going on.

The statistic re registered land is correct but isn't really representative. It's true that there are a lot of registered titles, but this doesn't account for near 85 percent of the land transactions, or 85 percent of the houses in dublin, according to my learned friends.

In east Dublin 6, it looked like a landlord's market the last time I dipped in. Maybe that isn't typical.

I agree with everything else you say. The way many landlords carry on is just ridiculous and the OP's case illustrates this well. On the other hand, the way tenants carried on until about 10 or 15 years ago was crazy too. We also now have some nutball agents involved in the process, which makes things even worse.