I need advice regarding landlord / tenants rights

tonyheaney

Hi all

My friend and his family moved into a house in Carlow, he has 2 children aged 2 and new-born. They are having some issues and i wandered if you could help me so i can help them?

1st. the house they now love in has been converted to gas, the immersion is no longer working as the owners (son) didn’t want too high bills, so I’m told the element was removed (does that make sense?). If they want to have a shower or wash the babies they must turn on the gas and wait nearly 45 mins for the water to heat up sufficiently for a quick 5/10 min shower, to this end they have to have the gas on for ages. Is this normal? The land lord says his son can’t do anything because of the lack of money, (the rent goes directly on the mortgage to the house). My friends just moved in a week ago. There was no mention of everything being converted in to gas until after they moved in and found out themselves.

2nd. when they left their last house tom move to this house the landlord charged then €170 to have the sitting room carpet clean. They used the real fire a lot to heat what was a cold house and as a result they carpet was in a bad way (or so the landlord said.) was the landlord in the right or just chancing his arm?
As my friends are Chinese (I am Irish) I feel they are getting a bum deal, I know this as my wife expere3nceed this before.

I’d really appreciate your help and advice on this matter.

Thank you in advance guys

MyKeyG

Regarding your second point it's a hard one to answer since nobody on boards has seen the condition of the carpet. However the general rule is that a landlord must accept that there will be a reasonable amount of 'wear and tear'. Unfortunately that's the problem, it's a general rule and what constitutes wear and tear is usually the landlords privilege. I presume he took it out of the deposit. If not then they could put the ball in his court and see if he's willing to push it.
I got royally screwed by a landlord a few years back. He held back over 250E for every little nit pick. We disagreed and he told us if we were in for a battle we 'couldn't have picked a better man'. Three months later he phoned me explaining that he had just received a bill from Dublin County Council telling him that the bin charges were 360E in arrears. He maintained it had been our responsibility and I told him if he needed help sticking the bill up his arse he couldn't have picked a better man.
The point I'm making is this. You'll get no satisfaction from people like Threshold and the likes, at least in my experience. Renting is more often than not nasty business.

djimi

Did they make any effort to keep the carpet clean in front of the fire? Tbh if I was using an open fire in a rented accomodation Id be putting my own rug down in front of the fire to ensure that the carpet does not get dirty/damaged. If the fire is used properly (guards etc) and care is taken when cleaning it out then I dont really see any reason why excessive damage/dirt should be caused to the carpet. Impossible to say though if the deduction was warranted without seeing it.

I dont think that they have much of a case with the water to be honest. The law states that provisions must be in place to provide hot running water, which they are. I dont think its a legal requirement that an immersion be in place. However, if the immersion is mentioned in the lease then the landlord probably would have an obligation to ensure that it works.

Have they signed a lease? If Im being brutally honest, if any landlord tells me that they cannot afford to fix something then that would set loud warning bells ringing in my head, and I would be looking at every available option to get the hell out of there if at all possible. If something more critical goes down they are going to be in real trouble if this guy cant afford to fix it.

tonyheaney

MyKeyG wrote: »

Regarding your second point it's a hard one to answer since nobody on boards has seen the condition of the carpet. However the general rule is that a landlord must accept that there will be a reasonable amount of 'wear and tear'. Unfortunately that's the problem, it's a general rule and what constitutes wear and tear is usually the landlords privilege. I presume he took it out of the deposit. If not then they could put the ball in his court and see if he's willing to push it.
I got royally screwed by a landlord a few years back. He held back over 250E for every little nit pick. We disagreed and he told us if we were in for a battle we 'couldn't have picked a better man'. Three months later he phoned me explaining that he had just received a bill from Dublin County Council telling him that the bin charges were 360E in arrears. He maintained it had been our responsibility and I told him if he needed help sticking the bill up his arse he couldn't have picked a better man.
The point I'm making is this. You'll get no satisfaction from people like Threshold and the likes, at least in my experience. Renting is more often than not nasty business.

Hi MyKeyG

Yes from what i understand the LL took the €170 out of the deposit for:

1. The repainting of house
2. To have the carpets cleaned

They had lived in the house for just over a year so that meant their 12 contract had been fulfilled. As for the carpets they were almost a year old. were.

The_Conductor

If the carpet was only a year old when they moved in- and had to be replaced after their 1 year tenancy- by most people's understanding of what constitutes normal wear and tear- this is abnormal and excessive. Carpets do not normally get replaced every two years. I use a fireplace. I have a good fireguard (and copper railings to keep the children well away from it). I've never replaced a carpet- ever. Its not normal. Is the deduction reasonable given the new carpet they needed? It doesn't sound excessive to be honest.

With respect of repainting the house? Once again- was it freshly painted when they moved in (or recently prior to this). Did they leave the walls in such a state that they needed repainting? If it was abnormal- then again- it comes from the deposit- if not, then it shouldn't.

By rights- both tenants and landlords should take photographs of every room in any residence, prior to commencement of a tenancy- and sign off on the state of the place at the end of the tenancy.

Note- if the landlord laid the carpet himself- or did the painting himself- he is only entitled to claim for the materials used (carpet and paint/brushes etc) and not any of the work involved.

Pawwed Rig

tonyheaney wrote: »

1st. the house they now love in has been converted to gas, the immersion is no longer working as the owners (son) didn’t want too high bills, so I’m told the element was removed (does that make sense?). If they want to have a shower or wash the babies they must turn on the gas and wait nearly 45 mins for the water to heat up sufficiently for a quick 5/10 min shower, to this end they have to have the gas on for ages. Is this normal?

Did they ask how the house/water was heated when viewing the property? If they were told that there was an immersion then it would be reasonable to get it fixed. If not or they did not ask then I don't see why the LL should replace it now.
I wouldn't say 45 min to heat water for a shower is excessive. I assume there is a timer that can be set so they do not need to roll out of bed at 6am to heat water for the morning time?
They could suggest paying to fix immersion themselves if they are concerned about it.

MyKeyG

tonyheaney wrote: »

1. The repainting of house
2. To have the carpets cleaned

Well that sounds fishy to me right there. It costs a hell of a lot more than €170 to repaint a house. I have to agree with another poster. When the issue came up they should have photographed the alleged damage. If the so-called 'repairs' have been done then your friends have nothing to go on.

The Spider

Carpet sounds like it was abused, coal and sparks etc, it can happen if you don't pay attention and put down a rug, either way it's the tenants fault and needs to be paid for, if you'd bought the carpet and it was your own house, would you be so careless?

Whole house may not need to be repainted, maybe one or two rooms, I'm thinking specifically as kids were mentioned that they do have a tendency to write on walls. Landlord may already have the paint and the cost is for labour.

Again needs to be paid for or repainted by the tenant.

Moonbeam

we only used gas for heating the water and find if you time jsut the water to come on for an hour every morning and sn hour in the evening there is always plenty of hot water that incl a non electric shower in the last house,in this house an hour a day does it as there are kids to bath etc.

djimi

The Spider wrote: »

Landlord may already have the paint and the cost is for labour.

Again needs to be paid for or repainted by the tenant.

If the landlord intends to repaint himself then he cannot deduct for labour. If he already had the materials then I'd say he would have a hard time deducting for those, as he would need to be able to produce receipts.

tonyheaney

The Spider wrote: »

Carpet sounds like it was abused, coal and sparks etc, it can happen if you don't pay attention and put down a rug, either way it's the tenants fault and needs to be paid for, if you'd bought the carpet and it was your own house, would you be so careless?

Whole house may not need to be repainted, maybe one or two rooms, I'm thinking specifically as kids were mentioned that they do have a tendency to write on walls. Landlord may already have the paint and the cost is for labour.

Again needs to be paid for or repainted by the tenant.

can you please pm me on a separate matter thank you

tonyheaney

The Spider wrote: »

Carpet sounds like it was abused, coal and sparks etc, it can happen if you don't pay attention and put down a rug, either way it's the tenants fault and needs to be paid for, if you'd bought the carpet and it was your own house, would you be so careless?

Whole house may not need to be repainted, maybe one or two rooms, I'm thinking specifically as kids were mentioned that they do have a tendency to write on walls. Landlord may already have the paint and the cost is for labour.

Again needs to be paid for or repainted by the tenant.

one child is 1 and a half and the other is 3 mts old