Deposit & landlord - what is wear and tear

Santa Cruz

ocy wrote: »

When we rented the house, we paid an increased rent for having a short lease and to cover wear and tear. The rent was already over inflated, but we needed a large house in a particular area.
I don't believe that any of the items are justified apart from the cooker, which I will happily return and clean as it was my mistake.
I am not looking for leniancy at having 3 children, its more the fact that there were 6 people in the house, I reckon that 6 adults could have left it in a worse state. It is a 5 bed house (3 double/2 single) so potentially there could be 8 people renting this house.

So you didn't pay an "extortionate rent". You paid a rent applicable to certain circumstances i.e. a short term rent to suit you because you wanted a house in a certain area and a short lease. Letting property is like any other business and governed by the laws of supply and demand. You could have got a property elsewhere far cheaper but that didn't suit you. The landlord could just as easy have let the property long term to someone else but did not. If you have done your business properly you would be aware of the leak under the sink and have photographic evidence of the condition of the property at letting and vacating.

djimi

Santa Cruz wrote: »

So you didn't pay an "extortionate rent". You paid a rent applicable to certain circumstances i.e. a short term rent to suit you because you wanted a house in a certain area and a short lease. Letting property is like any other business and governed by the laws of supply and demand. You could have got a property elsewhere far cheaper but that didn't suit you. The landlord could just as easy have let the property long term to someone else but did not. If you have done your business properly you would be aware of the leak under the sink and have photographic evidence of the condition of the property at letting and vacating.

How does any of that help the OP now?

groom

Santa Cruz wrote: »

So you didn't pay an "extortionate rent". You paid a rent applicable to certain circumstances i.e. a short term rent to suit you because you wanted a house in a certain area and a short lease. Letting property is like any other business and governed by the laws of supply and demand. You could have got a property elsewhere far cheaper but that didn't suit you. The landlord could just as easy have let the property long term to someone else but did not. If you have done your business properly you would be aware of the leak under the sink and have photographic evidence of the condition of the property at letting and vacating.

Letting property is like any other business and governed by laws like not attempting to retain money that isn't yours for made up reasons. Taking the OP's account as described the landlord is clearly a chancer. He will given short shift by the PRTB.

Santa Cruz

groom wrote: »

Letting property is like any other business and governed by laws like not attempting to retain money that isn't yours for made up reasons. Taking the OP's account as described the landlord is clearly a chancer. He will given short shift by the PRTB.

Have you actually attended a PRTB hearing? If so you will find that there are three sides to every story. The landlord, the tenants' and the truth

groom

Santa Cruz wrote: »

Have you actually attended a PRTB hearing? If so you will find that there are three sides to every story. The landlord, the tenants' and the truth

Hmmm solid proof that you haven't read the thread. Have attended a PRTB tribunal and won. My circumstances were similar to the OP's except that my LL wasn't nearly as unreasonable nor was he attempting to retain nearly as much.

I'm assuming the OP's description is pretty accurate. Why would you assume otherwise?

ocy

Update to our case

Initially we opened the case with PRTB (Feb 2014) as the landlord wanted to keep €1370 of our €3500 for damages beyond reasonable wear and tear. €583 had been agreed as the amount in lieu of rent owed for 5 days.

By the time we got a date for adjudication (late April 2014) he wanted €2422. On issue of the adjuctication report (Aug 2014) he was awarded €400 but we got €200 damages for his failure to return any of our deposit. He appealed it.

So we went to tribunal which was set for Sept 2014. Up to this point the landlord submitted no evidence, apart from a quote for alledged repairs. The tribunal in sept was adjourned until Oct 2014 to allow him submit evidence. He submitted a CD of photos the day before the tribunal.

We recieved the tribunal report this morning.

"The Appellant Landlord shall pay the total sum of €2,822.00 to the Respondent Tenants within 28 days of the date of issue of the order, being the unjustifiably retained portion of the security deposit of €3,500.00 having deducted the sum of €200.00 for damage in excess of normal wear and tear and having deducted the agreed sum of €583.00 for five days rent and having further deducted €495 being that portion of the deposit already refunded and having awarded damages to the Respondent Tenants in the sum of €600.00 for the consequences of breaches of the Appellant Landlords obligations in respect of the tenancy of the dwelling at.........."

Its been a lenghty process, but did find the whole process fair. Hopefully he will pay up now!

The_Conductor

Thanks for the update. Its a bit of a damning indictment- how long it took them to finally trundle to their conclusion. Do let us know if/when the landlord finally returns the money owed- and whether any further actions are needed to get the money out of him.

ocy

Will do, but not holding my breath, but I will see this thru... its about more than the money at this stage!

Eldarion

Appreciate you coming back and giving a first hand account of how it played out. Always makes for very interesting reading.

It's really appalling that it's gone a full year after the case was initially opened and you are still out the bones of €3k. That's not an insignificant sum of money by any stretch, I'd be expecting it back with interest after a year...

ocy

Quick Update:
28 days are up and still no money (he had 28 days to comply with order)
Heading down the enforcement route now with PRTB, anyone been down this road?

The_Conductor

Lots of people have.
The onus is on the Landlord, generally, to show that any deductions were justified.

If you genuinely feel you have a legitimate case- 100% definitely lodge a claim. The PRTB have gotten a lot faster at adjudicating these cases- you're probably looking at weeks rather than months now.

The best of good luck- I hope you have a satisfactory outcome to the process.

Ps- the enforcement route- such as it is- if the landlord decides to be a bollox- extends beyond the PRTB, to the district court- who would then give the county sheriff a warrant, allowing them to seize goods in satisfaction of the determination. If it does go this direction- it could get nasty......

ocy

This is where we are, the PRTB have giving their ruling and he hasn't paid up. Now we or the PRTB need to enforce the order. I am already over 13 months into this.

The_Conductor

ocy wrote: »

This is where we are, the PRTB have giving their ruling and he hasn't paid up. Now we or the PRTB need to enforce the order. I am already over 13 months into this.

The PRTB have no means of enforcing their ruling- which is a massive shortcoming in the system. You have to go to court, lodge the claim- and request court enforcement- which when that fails- then rolls on to a warrant being issued to the county sheriff on your behalf- who can seize goods to the value of the determination and costs.

ocy

Can I do this myself or do I have to throw more money at the problem?
Do I need a solicitor?

Michael D Not Higgins

ocy wrote: »

Can I do this myself or do I have to throw more money at the problem?
Do I need a solicitor?

The PRTB have their own legal representatives to chase these through the courts. Speak to them again and check your options.

foggy_lad

The_Conductor wrote: »

The PRTB have no means of enforcing their ruling- which is a massive shortcoming in the system. You have to go to court, lodge the claim- and request court enforcement- which when that fails- then rolls on to a warrant being issued to the county sheriff on your behalf- who can seize goods to the value of the determination and costs.

In reality though County sheriffs are just local business people who don't do much and will most likely not want to seize goods from another local business person.

ocy

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

The PRTB have their own legal representatives to chase these through the courts. Speak to them again and check your options.

The PRTB will follow it up at my request, but it will be another 2 months before they send the warning letter. I believe it can take up to a year to process... I was hoping for a quicker cheap solution

scwazrh

Would it be correct to think that legally this is a debt he now owes you and on that basis you can charge interest on a monthly basis?

ocy

Just a quick update;

- Moved out of rental property Feb 2014
- Landlord didnt return deposit
- Raised issue with PRTB
- Adjudication Hearing late April 2014
- Landlord appealled Aug2014
- Tribunal Pt 1 Mid Sept 2014
- Tribunal Pt 2 Mid Oct 2014 (this was to allow landlord to submit evidence, he hadn't submitted anything up to now)
- Determination order issued Feb 2015
- We asked PRTB to Enforce order in Mar 2015

No further contact from landlord until May 2015 when we received a cheque in post for €100 no accompanying letter, so we assume its in part payment for amount owing of €2800. We acknowledged receipt and cc'd PRTB.

This week we received word that the PRTP is to seek enforcement on our behalf.

Michael D Not Higgins

Sorry to hear it's taking so long but good that you're finally getting something.

ocy

We did look at the cost of getting our own solicitor to do it, but we were quoted €1000 plus VAT, so we decided to leave it to the PRTB. Wasnt expecting anything further to happen this year, but am happily surprised.

ocy

ocy wrote: »

Update to our case

Initially we opened the case with PRTB (Feb 2014) as the landlord wanted to keep €1370 of our €3500 for damages beyond reasonable wear and tear. €583 had been agreed as the amount in lieu of rent owed for 5 days.

By the time we got a date for adjudication (late April 2014) he wanted €2422. On issue of the adjuctication report (Aug 2014) he was awarded €400 but we got €200 damages for his failure to return any of our deposit. He appealed it.

So we went to tribunal which was set for Sept 2014. Up to this point the landlord submitted no evidence, apart from a quote for alledged repairs. The tribunal in sept was adjourned until Oct 2014 to allow him submit evidence. He submitted a CD of photos the day before the tribunal.

We recieved the tribunal report this morning.

"The Appellant Landlord shall pay the total sum of €2,822.00 to the Respondent Tenants within 28 days of the date of issue of the order, being the unjustifiably retained portion of the security deposit of €3,500.00 having deducted the sum of €200.00 for damage in excess of normal wear and tear and having deducted the agreed sum of €583.00 for five days rent and having further deducted €495 being that portion of the deposit already refunded and having awarded damages to the Respondent Tenants in the sum of €600.00 for the consequences of breaches of the Appellant Landlords obligations in respect of the tenancy of the dwelling at.........."

Its been a lenghty process, but did find the whole process fair. Hopefully he will pay up now!

Following the tribunal report the landlord in May 2015 started to pay us €100 per month. We sought enforcement by the PRTB and we got a date in Nov 2015 for the circuit court fairly open and shut case. Judge ruled that we needed to be paid and the PRTB are seeking costs. Landlord reckons he can't afford to pay us more than 100eur per month. Judge said that was ridiculous. Anyway he missed the Dec payment and we got a 100eur for Jan.

Apparently we now need to register a claim against him. This is a very long and painful process. But I won't back off I want my money back!