Tenant subletting?

gkelly88

Ok, so I have a 2 bed apt with a tenant in situ when I purchased 2 years ago, all is above board... lease in place, registered with RTB etc. Guy has caused no trouble. Always told me it was just him in the place when I suspected he had friends staying over on a permanent basis.

Except last night I went to get the new lease signed. There was a guy asleep on the couch and a mattress with blankets on the floor. And, from what I could see, 5 men in the apartment.

Lease was signed and then tenant asked to speak to me privately. He explained the other men are friends of his who he let stay when they needed somewhere and now he can't get them to move on. One guy is supposed to be living in direct provision except my tenant has told me he's been staying in the apartment for over a year and has threatened him with a STEAK KNIFE(!!!!) when he has been drinking and the topic of him moving on is broached. He told me he was terrified and was going to ring me at the time. I told him the only ones he should of been ringing were the Gardaí.

I am now left in a pickle.... I just want rid of the whole lot to be honest and I am afraid to go and serve them an eviction notice. Plus I'm worried about the possible implications of that many people in a 2 bed apartment.

Any advice greatly accepted. Please no hate!

Dial Hard

gkelly88 wrote: »

Except last night I went to get the new lease signed. There was a guy asleep on the couch and a mattress with blankets on the floor. And, from what I could see, 5 men in the apartment.

Lease was signed and then tenant asked to speak to me privately

Why in God's name did you go ahead and sign a new lease when you could clearly see that there were two other people living there without your permission???

gkelly88

Dial Hard wrote: »

Why in God's name did you go ahead and sign a new lease when you could clearly see that there were two other people living there without your permission???

He told me the mattress was for his brother who was visiting. The other guy was asleep on the couch, how did that indicate he was living there???

ted1

Dial Hard wrote: »

Why in God's name did you go ahead and sign a new lease when you could clearly see that there were two other people living there without your permission???

Because a lease is irrelevant as part 4 lasts for 6 years once the tenants there for 6 months

gkelly88

gkelly88 wrote: »

He told me the mattress was for his brother who was visiting. The other guy was asleep on the couch, how did that indicate he was living there???

Why did you get a lease signed at all, the lease is of no benefit to you. In fact it only gives you less power and out the tenant in a stronger position.

When are LLs going to realise they should not use fixed term leases ever.

OP you need to immediately issue an evection notice to the tenant and instruct all other people to leave the property. If the tenant gives you permission to enter then you can go in and get the squatters out yourself. Aside from the fact they are breaking any lease etc by having other people living there you could also end up in trouble for over crowding, fire safety breaches, breaking the head lease of the development etc etc. Get everyone gone asap including the tenant who allowed this to happen by letting people stay there in the first place.

Graham

I don't see how the lease is particularly relevant either way. I would presume the tenant is breaching their obligations.

OP you need to seriously consider giving the tenant a 14 day warning notice for breach of obligations. Should the breach not be remedied within the 14 days then you can issue a notice of termination.

There's no easy way out of this, but I can't see how things will improve with time.

GGTrek

gkelly88 wrote: »

Ok, so I have a 2 bed apt with a tenant in situ when I purchased 2 years ago, all is above board... lease in place, registered with RTB etc. Guy has caused no trouble. Always told me it was just him in the place when I suspected he had friends staying over on a permanent basis.

Except last night I went to get the new lease signed. There was a guy asleep on the couch and a mattress with blankets on the floor. And, from what I could see, 5 men in the apartment.

Lease was signed and then tenant asked to speak to me privately. He explained the other men are friends of his who he let stay when they needed somewhere and now he can't get them to move on. One guy is supposed to be living in direct provision except my tenant has told me he's been staying in the apartment for over a year and has threatened him with a STEAK KNIFE(!!!!) when he has been drinking and the topic of him moving on is broached. He told me he was terrified and was going to ring me at the time. I told him the only ones he should of been ringing were the Gardaí.

I am now left in a pickle.... I just want rid of the whole lot to be honest and I am afraid to go and serve them an eviction notice. Plus I'm worried about the possible implications of that many people in a 2 bed apartment.

Any advice greatly accepted. Please no hate!

I mean, I am a landlord and I am speechless about your naivety! This tenant is taking you for a ride and you sign a new lease?!

Unfortunately the other posters did not provide you any practical information on how to evict a "smart" tenant like yours. They forgot about the high standard of proof necessary to evict a tenant for breach of tenant obligation. No. 1 you should have immediately taken photos of all the beds and mattresses and in general of the whole apartment, then take photos of any visible letters that are not in the name of the main tenant and gone with a witness that will testify there were 5 people in the apartment.

Then you would send this 14 days warning notice:
https://onestopshop.rtb.ie/images/uploads/Disputes/Sample%20Notice%20of%20Termination%20-%20breach-of-tenant-obligations.docx

However you need to adapt it for your particular case, I would not use subletting since it is particularly hard to prove if your main tenant is still living there (you have to prove that one of his licensee is paying him to stay), I would just use the original tenancy agreement that is probably stating the maximum number of people that can stay at the flat and the fact that he has not provided you the ids of all the occupants as he should do by law, more or less a good warning notice that will go fine with RTB adjudicators is like this:

To: [Tenant(s) name and surname],

As tenant(s) of [address of apartment] (from now on called the dwelling) you are in breach of your tenancy obligations under the terms of the lease dated [date], between you and the Landlord.

I have evidence from meeting personally with Mr/Ms [name and surname of tenant] on the [date] and from the photographs attached, that you are currently allowing several unidentified people to live at the dwelling without any Landlord consent and in this way breaching the following clauses of your lease:

- [copy and paste the clauses breached]
- Section 16(n) of the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004 to 2016: “notify in writing the landlord of the identity of each person (other than a multiple tenant) who, for the time being, resides ordinarily in the dwelling.”

Please consider this notice a final demand on you to remedy this situation by removing the unidentified people from the dwelling and not to allow any further people not indicated in your lease to stay at the dwelling. By this notice I give you a period of 14 days to remedy the breach of your tenancy obligations.  Should you fail to remedy the breach on or before the [calculate 15 days from serving date], I am entitled to terminate your tenancy pursuant to Part 5 of the Residential Tenancies Acts 2004 to 2016.

This notice is served on [date of service].

Signed:

_________________________
[name and surname of Landlord]
The Landlord
Signs as witness of delivery [print name and surname of witness and signs] __________________

You then have to wait the 14 days and verify with witness, photos or cameras that people are still staying overnight and letters are still arriving with other people names after the 14 days. Only at this point you can provide the 28 days termination notice and finally take the "smart" tenant to the RTB to get a determination order to get rid of him and all his unlawful occupants, you present all your proof against the lies of the "smart" tenant in front of an adjudicator and if it all goes through well and tenant does not move out you will have to enforce the eviction in a real court (Circuit).

As you can see it is an extremely onerous system designed by the Irish govvie to screw the landlords. The most onerous part is the standard of proof that the RTB requires and the fact that the law forces the landlord to provide second chances to the tenant for such gross breaches of tenancy law and agreements.

So you have to prove it twice and the second time the tenant will be smarter and if you request an inspection everything will look fine, that is why only installing cameras monitoring entrance of apartment will give you the proof that you need (if you can install them). If you are close to the 4 years duration the easiest thing to do is not to grant a further part 4 (other termination notice type) so that you have no proof to provide.

Good luck

Lumen

On the face of it the tenant is showing willing to rectify the situation, and so should facilitate your access to obtain evidence.

You could then ask the tenant to write you a letter explaining the situation.

You then have options in how to proceed.

Be mindful of the fact that someone could end up seriously hurt and consider involving the gardai once you have evidence.

If the place is well kept there's no actual harm done. Yet.