Galway Tenant Horror Stories

Fergl

As someone who is going through one with <snip> (agency) I'm interested to hear tenant's horror stories.

I'll get the balling rolling with my own story

I was a fantastic tenant and left my rented house cleaner than I found it. <snip> said I'd have the deposit a week later. That was 2 months ago ! For the last 2 month's it's been coming 'soon'.

My landlord who is an absolute gentleman was putting pressure on <snip> to return the deposit but to no avail.

Since moving out I've heard a few negative stories about <snip> which unfortunately isn't much good after the event.

That's my story, your's ?

Blondie919

Have you gotten in touch with Threshold? They can help you out.

JohnCleary

As a rule of thumb I don't do agencies, they are scum

ErnieBert

JohnCleary wrote: »

As a rule of thumb I don't do agencies, they are scum

Same as that. Before I bought my humble home, I preferred to rent directly from Landlords. As a general rule, if the apartment looks like a dump, then the landlord was usually a tosser.

If the apartment looked well maintained and clean, then the Landlord was easy to deal with.

snubbleste

This could be a very very long thread.

Amhran Nua

The last time I had a problem was with a clown in Wellpark who spoke with a very high voice, himself and the wife had split the house next door to them into upstairs and downstairs apartments. The girls upstairs complained that he walked in on them without notice, and was rifling through their clothes, and he was battering down my door at one stage at 3am, saying that he heard the shower light left on.

Long story short, he hung onto the ESB money I paid and we left before they cut off the electricity, so I reported him to revenue, and with any luck he's out of business. If not, avoid renting a place from someone in Wellpark that sounds like he got a bad hurley and never recovered.

SIR PEADO BAILOUT

That sounds dreadful I had no idea these things were still going on,what with all the laws and regs,you`d think it was like the mafia or worse getting a place to stay.

CrinkElite

Myself and four friends rented a big house in the leafy area of highfield in westside.
we stayed there for two years and were never late with the rent and never caused any trouble.
As rents fell in galway they wanted to up the price so we decided to move on.
We stayed out our last six weeks of notice and everything was nice and civil between us and the agency during this period.
The most senior member of the agency was out to the house for a cup of tea and we discussed the eventual move, he also informally inspected the property at this point and everything was to his satisfaction.
When we finally went to get the deposit they turned nasty. They started accusing us of all sorts of damage and made out that we actually owed them money.
we started receiving solicitors letter demanding we pay them around 3000 euro or face them in court.
They produced reams of hand written receipts 1000 euro for a new fireplace, 800 for a new carpet another 500 for cleaning and so on.
I went back up to the house to look in the windows where I discovered that none of those things had actually been replaced. and the house was back up for rent in the advertiser.
Somehow he managed to get hold of my life history and figured out where I come from originally. He started sending threatening letters to my parents house and even put in a claim in the courthouse in my home town.
Luckily a friend of the family is an excellent solicitor and she gave me free advice on how best to handle the situation. A few well aimed threats were enough to get him to back down in the end. I don't know what we would have done without her help.
I know that boards.ie is forced to bow to law enforcement when given a court order in the event of a libelous claim so I'm going to resist the temptation to post the actual name of the agency. I never want to deal with these people again.

<snip>

you have been warned!

krissovo

I have had two bad experiences.

1st one Cork city - Moved out, landlord demanded extra money for cleaning and maintenance and even removed my car from the parking space to his home to keep until I paid the money and was also charging €50 a day to store my car. Police wanted nothing to with it and eventually went PRTB and they were shocked, got money and car back eventually.

2nd - Cork County, landlords were a couple who wanted to live in Kerry but house was bought on affordable housing scheme and they were tied to home plus it was negative equity. Night before we moved one of them called and accused us of trashing the place and that there was no chance we would get our money back. We left the house immaculate and still no money, eventually after threatening going to PRTB they admitted they spent the money and could not return the deposit. They gave it back two months later.

Bought our own home now, Landlords are the lowest of the low in this country. There is an expectation that the deposit is their cash.

athtrasna

krissovo wrote: »

Landlords are the lowest of the low in this country. There is an expectation that the deposit is their cash.

Talk about a sweeping generalisation :rolleyes: If for some reason you had to rent out your home that you now own, would you become the lowest of the low?

po0k

OP and others: Please don't mention business names (libel law etc.).
Get on to Threshold.ie as suggested by Blondie919 and get your satisfaction.

Liberal Irishman

krissovo wrote: »

I have had two bad experiences.
Landlords are the lowest of the low in this country. There is an expectation that the deposit is their cash.

I had to move from Galway to Dublin and I find that it is the same all over!

The_Conductor

You are going to have bad landlords and bad tenants everywhere. Its a very wide sweeping generalisation to suggest that either group are the 'low of the low'. My sister had to emigrate and let her apartment off Dominic Street out, as the property was in significant negative equity and she couldn't make up the difference if she were to try selling it. Her first letting was to a lovely couple, who always paid the rent on time and were so easy to deal with. Her second letting unfortunately didn't go according to plan- the couple decided without permission to sublet to a group of students, who in turn decided that they didn't want to pay rent, wanted to hold regular parties annoying all the neighbours, and would ignore any letters or instructions to vacate the premises. All-in-all, they had the property for nearly 16 months- and it was only after the PRTB process was exhausted and a district court ruling obtained- that they vanished one weekend without any further ado. It cost just under 18k to restore the house to a habitable state- which included replacing partition walls that had been kicked in, replacing broken windows and rewiring the firealarm system (they deliberately sabotaged it as they wanted to smoke indoors). Multiple coats of paint, new doors in the kitchen and replacements for most of the appliances were all necessary..........

Yet- she has had wonderful tenants before and since this experience...........

Landlords seem to tar tenants with brush because of their experiences of some who like to play the system for what its worth- tenants like to do likewise with landlords- it doesn't mean that there aren't perfectly decent tenants and landlords out there- the majority of both tenants and landlords are perfectly normal decent people.

Fergl

To conclude my story.
The agency simply refused to return the deposit :mad:
The landlord did and he is taking the agency to the small claims court:)

Similar problems in Limerick
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75621624
and dublin
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056451973