Breaking a lease early, can landlord withold deposit?

xxbabydollxx

Hi

I`m renting a house with my partner at the moment, halfway through a 1 year lease
But recently due to ****ty economy, my boyfriend lost his job as a carpenter and is now claiming jobseekers, and shortly after i was cut down to 3 day week so our income is now less than half what it used to be! So weve resorted to downsizing.

I`m wondering if i give adequate notice to the landlord, and he deems the house is in good condition, is there any way am entitled to the deposit back only we`ll need it 4 the new place.
I can understand him witholding it if we just fancied a change of scenery but we have no money and instead of stringing him along were being honest!
Also i heard he could enforce the lease upon us but i dont see the point as we dont have the money to pay!
Any advice would be appreciated!

bugler

The landlord may be entitled to retain the deposit if you break the lease, but there are a couple of things you should do or try to do first before giving up.

1. Try talking to the landlord, explain the situation, and offer to facilitate viewings of any potential new tenants. Not all LL are ogres, and youmay be able to come to an arrangement whereby the LL loses no money or doesn't have an unoccupied dwelling, and you get your deposit back.

2. The landlord does not have to help you in the above manner. However, you have a statutory right to find someone else to assign the remainder of the lease to and so incur no penalty for breaking the lease. If the landlord refuses your request to assign the remainder of the lease you can then serve notice of termination of the tenancy. That is the theory, in practice I have never even heard of anyone doing the above, nor do I know of the finer details entailed in it (do you need to get references, deposits, what if the LL thinks the assignee is trouble etc). It also seems harsh on the person who might be assigned the lease - they're all set to move in and then the LL decides he doesn't like the cut of them.

I think you're also facing the fact that the rental market is slack and potential tenants may be scarce, so finding someone to assign the lease to might be hard.

With all that in mind I'd revert to 1. Talk to the LL, see if he's flexible. If he isn't, you might want to mention your statutory right to assign the lease to someone else, and say you will pursue this route. Even if you're bluffing, it might work.

You might want to contact Threshold, (www.threshold.ie) or at least read around their site. Good luck!

misho

Me and my wife are in similar situation. We’ve been renting for 4 months now (12 months lease). After we moved in we found some issues around the house which the landlord agreed to get fixed. We gave him the list of problems in writing. The landlord still hasn’t fixed some of them yet - serious health and safety issues. We are in problematic situation as well and need to find smaller (cheaper) place.

I was thinking about giving a termination notice to the landlord due to the fact he broke the contract and didn’t sort out problems in a reasonable time. I’m worried about the deposit and then if he could bring us to the court over breaking the lease early.

Any advice will be appreciated. I was trying to contact Threshold but their lines were always busy.

big syke

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/housing/renting-a-home/landlords_rights_and_obligations

look under deposits. am in a similar situation and will be talkin to threshold.ie in the nexxt few days....