Serving termination notice

necstandards

I have a tenant in a house share renting one room. They were working when they took the room almost three years ago but have went back to college. Since their return to college they started missing rent and paying utility bills on time. I’ve restored to issuing warning notices (about three served). Until now they would have paid within the warning time. However the last utility bill they missed paying up during the warning time + 3 days, so I issued a 28day termination notice (breach of tenant obligations – at the start of the tenancy it was agreed and signed that utility bills were to be paid within 7 days of issue).
Two days after serving the termination they have paid up (infact over paid by a few euro).
I want to continue with the eviction as I don’t want the hassle of having to issue warnings every month, but fear they will dispute through the RTB, where I will loose and waste my time.
Any advice welcomed.

Xterminator

I have a tenant in a house share renting one room.

no you don't. you have a licensee. and that is legally a different kettle of fish.

Fol20

It may not be a licensee. Its not clear from the OP if its their PPR and they actually live there.

necstandards

Fol20 wrote: »

It may not be a licensee. Its not clear from the OP if its their PPR and they actually live there.

Sorry. No it is not my PPR, i live else where.

dennyk

As far as I know, if they didn't fully correct their breach of lease obligations within the initial reasonable period you gave them to correct, your 28-day notice of termination is still valid, even if they later remedy the breach after you've served the notice to terminate. 14 days is the statutory period for payment of rent arrears, so it would probably also be considered a reasonable period of time to correct arrears for a non-rent payment agreed to in the lease. Of course that won't stop your tenant from overholding and challenging it with the RTB, so make sure you've followed the rules to the letter with regards to your notifications and such, and research carefully or seek professional legal advice before taking any future actions.

That said, a licensee agreement doesn't necessarily require you to live in the property; it depends on how your agreement with your lodger is constructed. Individual rooms rented in non-owner-occupied properties can be licensee agreements under some circumstances. If the agreement explicitly states that it is a licensee agreement and the lodger does not have exclusive use of the property and the landlord can access the property themselves at any time, rent out other rooms in the property to other lodgers, move the lodger to a different room, etc., then the lodger is most likely a licensee, not a tenant. If you're renting out the entire property to a group of people and they collectively have exclusive use of the entire property as a whole, though, that is most likely a tenancy agreement with multiple tenants and the RTA would apply.

bingbong500

dennyk wrote: »

That said, a licensee agreement doesn't necessarily require you to live in the property; it depends on how your agreement with your lodger is constructed.

It does. You cannot have a lodger if you don't live in the house. That is the definition of a lodger, someone who lives in your house, with you, in a room you rent to them. If you don't live their, they are not a lodger. They are a tenant. The contract you have with them is completely irrelevant.

dennyk

bingbong500 wrote: »

It does. You cannot have a lodger if you don't live in the house. That is the definition of a lodger, someone who lives in your house, with you, in a room you rent to them. If you don't live their, they are not a lodger. They are a tenant. The contract you have with them is completely irrelevant.

Not entirely the case, per the RTB:

A licensee is a person who occupies accommodation under license. Licensees can arise in all sorts of accommodation but most commonly in the following four areas;...

...persons occupying accommodation in which the owner is not resident under a formal license arrangement with the owner where the occupants are not entitled to its exclusive use and the owner has continuing access to the accommodation and/or can move around or change the occupants...

(Note that this is listed separately from "hotels, guesthouses, hostels, etc." so refers to properties which are outside those categories)

It is true that the line between a tenant and a licensee isn't very well defined in that case, and the RTB may lean towards deeming an agreement a tenancy if there is any ambiguity as to its nature (as defined in the agreement itself or in actual practice), but it isn't a hard and fast rule that the landlord must live in the property in order for the agreement to be a license instead of a tenancy, it just makes the determination much clearer when that's the case.

4ensic15

dennyk wrote: »

Not entirely the case, per the RTB:



(Note that this is listed separately from "hotels, guesthouses, hostels, etc." so refers to properties which are outside those categories)

It is true that the line between a tenant and a licensee isn't very well defined in that case, and the RTB may lean towards deeming an agreement a tenancy if there is any ambiguity as to its nature (as defined in the agreement itself or in actual practice), but it isn't a hard and fast rule that the landlord must live in the property in order for the agreement to be a license instead of a tenancy, it just makes the determination much clearer when that's the case.

If the landlord lives in the property, the Residential Tenancies Act doesn't apply to the letting whether it is a licence or a tenancy.

ted1

Does the arrears notice allow for utility bills? Or only rent ?

Why are you billing them? Put utilities in the tenants name , or fit prepaid meters

JustAThought

I don't know the lwgalities but I sympathise -I have been in the same boat & it poisons the athmosphere of the house. We are now coming up to exam time -what do they intend doing after college finishes for the summer - get a summer job? Or moving? It might be worth having a conversation along the lines of that -having a judgement made against you might scupper your job chpices and visa options in the future - they may preger or be planning on pa king up and going rather yhan have that happen -or they may be moving anyway. Worth a discussion.

dennyk

ted1 wrote: »

Does the arrears notice allow for utility bills? Or only rent ?

Even if unpaid utilities or other fees aren't considered rent per se, if they must be paid as per a term of the lease then failure to pay would be a breach, and as 14 days to correct rent arrears is considered reasonable, it's likely the RTB would also consider the same period to be a reasonable time to remedy the breach of failure to make another payment required by the lease.