illegal eviction? never served me with 14 days warrning.

mallynthemiddle

Today Landlord served me with a Notice of termination. On it states "the reason for this termination of tenancy is as follows; Failure to pay the agreed rent on time in the agreed fashion, as set out in the letting aggrement." Yes i did fall behind in my rent, i didn't pay the sum of 44.70 for three weeks, total 134.10. My weekly rent is 120 a week with 75.30 euro rent allowance., that goes directly into the agents bank . My Agent did send 2 letters stating i was behind in rent, i paid it in full 14 days after recieving the letter, but it does state on my contract that the landlord can terminate contract if i am 14 days late with rent,which i was, so am i introuble? Homeless?
The agent did not serve me with a 14 day warning notice, which i believe makes the eviction notice invalid??? So if its invalid does that mean im ok to stay here until my contract ends in September?

PS

What if the agent says she served me with this notice, how do i prove she didn't? not possible. All she has to do is type one out is it??

Slydice

mallynthemiddle: I'd say you should contact threshold in the morning. Their website is: http://www.threshold.ie/

This image pops up on their frontpage:


They have an advice page with more contact details here:
http://www.threshold.ie/advice/

Here's their information page on how tenacys can end (it includes info on arrears):
http://www.threshold.ie/advice/ending-a-tenancy/how-your-landlord-may-end-your-tenancy/

Clampdown

It's completely invalid. They have to give you written notice for rent arrears which then affords tenants 14 days to pay. Then they must give written notice of eviction but can only do this if you failed to pay within the 14 days. And then they have to give you 28 days to move out. If you haven't received the eviction written notice properly (ie: registered post) the eviction is invalid also.

However, you said they sent 2 letters and that you were three weeks late. Did those letters say you have 14 days to pay as they should or what did they say? And if you were three weeks late you were cutting it pretty fine if they sent the first one straight away. Did you make contact at all as regards the arrears or letters?

Anyway, just to let you know they can't put terms or rules into the lease which override or supercede the law set out in the Res tenancy act. Plenty landlords would love to kick out tenants and keep their deposit for being a day late which is why these laws were brought in. They can NOT terminate your tenancy for being 14 days late unless they gave you written notice of rent arrears and you didn't pay within 14 days of the date of that written notice. Ie: they can't just kick you out if 14 days passes from the date your rent is due, they must notify you of arrears, then you get 14 days, and if you pay within that, all goes back to normal, if you dont pay, they must give you a letter of eviction and allow you 28 days to vacate. Any step missed and there can be no eviction (legally anyway)

Do everything in writing straight away and write to them saying you are contesting the legality of the eviction as it is not in accordance with the procedures set out in the Residential tenancy act. And make sure you have proof of your rent being caught up. let the landlord know you will go to the PRTB for an illegal eviction. I was illegally evicted and the judgement went against the landlord for a substantial sum (only problem is there is no way to get this enforced, or if it enforced it takes ages). Still worth doing and only costs 15 euro, you can open a dispute online, if they do try to evict you.

Though first I would try and work it out with the landlord by apologizing, give them an excuse (an unexpected dentist bill or something), promise it won't happen again and don't let ir happen again. It can be really hard to find landlords that accept RA now due to things like this. The RA limits in my area were unrealistically low so I can't qualify and had to pay every penny of rent out of my dole. You don't want to end up in that position! You're not even paying 50 a week, you should be able to manage in fairness.

davo10

Op, if you are paying weekly, are you a licencee?