Letting Agency lying/breaching tenancy agreement

djimi

By definition (Websters dictionary) an emergency is "an unexpected and usually dangerous situation that calls for immediate action". A mould problem, even a severe one, would never be classed as such. Its important that action be taken, but its not so important that it cant wait a number of hours or even days until the tenant is at home to allow the inspection.

D3PO

djimi wrote: »

By definition (Websters dictionary) an emergency is "an unexpected and usually dangerous situation that calls for immediate action". A mould problem, even a severe one, would never be classed as such. Its important that action be taken, but its not so important that it cant wait a number of hours or even days until the tenant is at home to allow the inspection.

yes but websters dictionary is not any agreed reference for any Irish act so therefore has no relevant place in a discussion as to weather Irish law and specifically the RTA has been breached.

djimi

On that basis you could dispute virtually every word in the RTA if you are not going to accept the dictionary definition of them.

D3PO

djimi wrote: »

On that basis you could dispute virtually every word in the RTA if you are not going to accept the dictionary definition of them.

Im not trying to be difficult for difficulties sake. Again I agree that the entry (if it did in fact happen) was in my view unwarranted.

However what Im saying and it absolutely has merit is that an emergency isn't clearly defined. That means a dispute regarding the definition of what actually constitutes an emergency could be made by the LL / EA in any dispute made in this regard.

That is exactly the basis any dispute regarding law is made. Weather we like it or not. Frustrating as that is for the person on the other side of the argument the argument over what a word consists about is a daily occurrence in the court system and as such can equally be applied to an PRTB dispute that could be raised.

djimi

Well considering the clause in the RTA is in place to allow the landlord to effectively breach the tenants rights in order to deal with the issue immediately, I would say that they would need to be able to prove that immediate action was required, or at the very least they thought that immediate action was required. Easy to do for something like a gas/water leak or a possible medical emergency which all require immediate action. For a mould problem? No way you could argue that it is a serious enough emergency as to require immediate attention.

There are plenty of ambiguous terms in the RTA, however I do not really believe that this is one of them.

D3PO

djimi wrote: »

Well considering the clause in the RTA is in place to allow the landlord to effectively breach the tenants rights in order to deal with the issue immediately, I would say that they would need to be able to prove that immediate action was required, or at the very least they thought that immediate action was required. Easy to do for something like a gas/water leak or a possible medical emergency which all require immediate action. For a mould problem? No way you could argue that it is a serious enough emergency as to require immediate attention.

There are plenty of ambiguous terms in the RTA, however I do not really believe that this is one of them.

I think your missing the point though. You could make the argument. Its flimsy as hell but you could make the argument. In the case of an PRTB dispute the logical conclusion to this is that the PRTB would find in the tenants favour but unless the LL has had a previous dispute against them for this they would likely be warned / advised that future behavior could lead to sanctions.

Essentially the LL will get away with it scott free and at best would actually have a finding made in their favour (strange things happen in disputes) which would then cause tenants the length and breath of the country major headaches going forward with a precedent like that.

Essentially my take on it would be that the tenant has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by raising something like this.

djimi

That doesnt sit right with me at all. Illegal invasion of a tenants home is one of the worst breaches a landlord can make imo; nobody should be made to feel like they have no privacy in their own home. If it happened to me I would be taking a case with the PRTB and seeing what comes of it. Even if its only a slap on the wrist; isnt it better than nothing in that perhaps the next poor gob****e who rents from that landlord might not be subjected to the same thing.

ted1

NicoleL88 wrote: »

when we have the tumble dryer running. We also hang our clothes to dry in the bathroom and keep the window open and door closed. Funnily enough the bathroom is the only room that doesn't have mould or condensation!

was ther Tumble fryer there when you moved in? what type is it vented or condensor?

NicoleL88

Well you'll never guess what happened. The letting agent we were dealing with f*cked off on her holidays and left no word for anyone to get back to us.

Anger is not the word!

D3PO

NicoleL88 wrote: »

Well you'll never guess what happened. The letting agent we were dealing with f*cked off on her holidays and left no word for anyone to get back to us.

Anger is not the word!

Told ya ..... (and I take no joy in being right here btw)

NicoleL88

I'm honestly not one bit surprised. Just incredibly angry and frustrated. We have contacted Cork county council and PRTB and are awaiting replies from both. Oh and the agency was refusing to give us our landlord's contact details but according to PRTB this is illegal, so there'll have to be another meeting today. So sick of having to deal with this.

NicoleL88

Just to give an update, myself and the OH went over to the Letting Agency. We spoke directly to the managing director who said we had a "very bad attitude"... no sh*t Sherlock!!!

I ended up getting extremely upset and once she saw how much it was bothering us and affecting out day to day lives she said we should sit down with the other girl when she comes back to sort it all out. I honestly have no interest in doing this. She tried to argue that it was an emergency situation, and kept ignoring the fact that we did not give any permission to enter at all, nor were we contacted and told that someone would be calling.

Anyway, in regards to the mould situation, she came over to the apartment with a service person/contractor who tested the walls and said there was an issue behind the wall. It has gotten SO much worse in the last week. The walls are actually dripping, there's way more black mould growing, and I even found a massive patch on our duvet, which nearly made me sick.

Someone else came over today and inspected the building and said he would be presenting his findings to the agency and leaving it with them to contact the landlord to work out what to do next.

I am really hoping they contact us in the morning, there is no way I am letting this continue past the next 7 days. I myself have been really sick since last week, mainly sinus issues and now my throat is incredibly dry and sore. I have a feeling that the conditions in the bedroom is what's causing it. I've moved our bed to the opposite wall and the rest of the apartment is absolutely fine now, it's just the bedroom, but it's so so bad.

I'm cleaning the mould every day and mopping up the wet on the walls twice a day. My head is wrecked.

Muahahaha

While I agree that mould isn't an emergency in a dispute the landlord/agent could easily claim that they couldn't possibly of known whether or not the mould was so bad as to whether it constitutes an emergency. I say that because reading how bad it has now become for the OP it now sounds like a true emergency to me and the agent could justify it on that basis.

OP I hope it gets better for you soon, I really do. I'm just wondering is the PRTB the only port of call in this scenario? Is such a bad mould problem something that would be of interest to an Environmental Health Officer or is it outside of their jurisdiction to inspect residential properties ?

SpaceTime

An emergency situation would surely be something like a gas leak, fire or flood.

Mould treatment would be a maintenance issue. It's a nasty problem but I can't see how anyone would classify it as an emergency.