My maintenance builder is my tenant, he hasnt completed work & stopped paying rent.

N

noel123ie

Registered User
Messages
162
Hi all

To cut a long story short Ive a guy renting for me who has not paid rent in 3 weeks. Originally he told me that he was getting rent allowance but has never confirmed this nor have I ever gotten a cheque from social welfare

Rent is paid weekly. He is a builder who I know is working as well as on the dole

Ive no rental agreement with him

This is where it gets complicated, He did up this house for me (I understand I should not have employed him while on social) liked it and then decided to rent it from me. He has not finished house even though he is in there since June. There is approx 2k worth of work to be done on this

He also did work for my brother worth 8000-9000k ,4000 of this has not been done. This is where I feel really bad as I recommended him

He has given me signed receipts in 2011 for total of work done which he now wants back

My options as I see it are

1 He is a proud member of master craftsmen of Ireland. I can say to him that I will be contacting them

2 Last week he asked me to recommend him to a guy that was looking at house with a view to giving him work. I did this as I hoped it would help me get funds from tenant, I can tell teneant Ill be calling him as I know where his business is based

3 The reciepts I have are ones I printed out with itemised items and his previous address where his partner lives. He has signed these. I could threaten to go to social with these as I also have his pps no. I am very careful though as I dont want to contact revenue and bring them down on me as well

I hope to give him a weeks notice this weekend and change locks . However I do not want to put a foot wrong as dont want to bring a case on myself if I handle this incorrectly

Ive registered this with tenancy board

Ive dropped rent 120 a month to help him out as he said he was stuck for money but Ive seen him a no of times in the pub


Im in a bit of a fix so any help would be great
Many Thanks
Noel
 
He did up this house for me( I understand I should not have employed him while on social) liked it and then decided to rent it from me. He has not finished house even though he is in there since June. There is approx 2k worth of work to be done on this
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He also did work for my brother worth 8000-9000k ,4000 of this has not been done.
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Have you and your brother paid him in advance for work to be done ? Get rid of him as quick and as legally as you can would be my advice. Don't change the locks, that's illegal. You need to approach him and tell him you are going to report him as per what you have said above and hope that he spooks and goes away.
 
elcato said:
Have you and your brother paid him in advance for work to be done ? Get rid of him as quick and as legally as you can would be my advice. Don't change the locks, that's illegal. You need to approach him and tell him you are going to report him as per what you have said above and hope that he spooks and goes away.
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Hi Elcato

Thanks for the reply

yes have paid him in advance...foolish I know now but was trying to help the guy out

Yes meeting him tomorrow with my brother and will see what he says..Will keep you updated

Noel
 
noel123ie said:
I dont want to contact revenue and bring them down on me as well
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You say you have the tenancy registered-what would be the concern about the revenue for you? If this guy is claiming social welfare and working he deserves to be reported. You would think he would have the sense to finish his work and keep the focus away from him-seems to me he is getting greedy looking for more work, when he has plenty of unfinshed work to keep him busy already.
 
Ive tried to clal him a few times no reply to texts or calls

I went to the house last evening and he was in the pub unreal!

Yes hes unreal he must think we are weeds or very stupid

Im a nice guy but not that nice!

Thanks again all
Noel
 
Given that you have been more than nice to him-I think you know what you should do next.
 
Luternau said:
You say you have the tenancy registered-what would be the concern about the revenue for you? If this guy is claiming social welfare and working he deserves to be reported. You would think he would have the sense to finish his work and keep the focus away from him-seems to me he is getting greedy looking for more work, when he has plenty of unfinshed work to keep him busy already.
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My brother is farming part time and in fariness he is always 100% honest

Id just be afraid the tenant would go mad and damage house or family

Doubt he would but who knows

He could always ring revenus on us

Im tax compliant this is my first move AND LAST into the dark side but revenue will always find something its their job

Thanks
Noel
 
Hi Noel,

I would be very careful about comments that someone is working "while on the dole"
Knowing that someone is/ or as on Jobseekers is irrelevant to your landlord status.

Its up to him to declare any income to the social welfare inspector, not you.
People are allowed to sign off and earn income within certain limits.

In fact he "should" be trying to find work and come off welfare.
You playing your part in that is not doing something wrong.

You cannot know whether he has declared his income.
Therefore your comments should reflect this in future.

----------------------

However in relation to evicting your tenant, what's the charge?

You have reduced rent - temporarily - at his request, but you need the property to "wash its face".
I think you should consider raising the rent again and writing to him requesting he completes his work.

I don't think you have grounds to evict him, but you are under no obligation to keep giving him work.
If he cannot pay or chooses to drink his rent money that's his choice to make.

At that point you may take steps to evict him for non-payment of rent.
However the lack of a rental agreement hay affect his and your rights.

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In relation to him not completing a task, to what can you point?

You don't appear to have a written or signed contract and no plans or spec.
You freely paid him in advance and you seem to have had some work out of him.

You apparently proceeded to site on the basis of a verbal contract and estimate - did you not this?
There seems to be no estimate, start date, completion date or building programme to which you can hold him

Again, its after the fact, but i would write to him stating what you understood to be the contract and asking him to comment.
I would request his comment in writing and hold him to that as evidence of the contract and do not under any circumstance return receipts.

----------------------

I think you need to take legal advice before proceeding.
You may get better advice from others on AAM.


ONQ.
 
noel123ie said:
Im tax compliant this is my first move AND LAST into the dark side but revenue will always find something its their job
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If its any consolation, a large majority of Revenue Audits yield no additional tax liability for the taxpayer. Also, although I have no idea how Revenue process vexatious-sounding reports from 'concerned citizens', I'm sure a lot of them end up in the bin.
 
onq said:
Hi Noel,

I would be very careful about comments that someone is working "while on the dole"
Knowing that someone is/ or as on Jobseekers is irrelevant to your landlord status.

Its up to him to declare any income to the social welfare inspector, not you.
People are allowed to sign off and earn income within certain limits.

In fact he "should" be trying to find work and come off welfare.
You playing your part in that is not doing something wrong.

You cannot know whether he has declared his income.
Therefore your comments should reflect this in future.

----------------------

However in relation to evicting your tenant, what's the charge?

You have reduced rent - temporarily - at his request, but you need the property to "wash its face".
I think you should consider raising the rent again and writing to him requesting he completes his work.

I don't think you have grounds to evict him, but you are under no obligation to keep giving him work.
If he cannot pay or chooses to drink his rent money that's his choice to make.

At that point you may take steps to evict him for non-payment of rent.
However the lack of a rental agreement hay affect his and your rights.

----------------------

In relation to him not completing a task, to what can you point?

You don't appear to have a written or signed contract and no plans or spec.
You freely paid him in advance and you seem to have had some work out of him.

You apparently proceeded to site on the basis of a verbal contract and estimate - did you not this?
There seems to be no estimate, start date, completion date or building programme to which you can hold him

Again, its after the fact, but i would write to him stating what you understood to be the contract and asking him to comment.
I would request his comment in writing and hold him to that as evidence of the contract and do not under any circumstance return receipts.

----------------------

I think you need to take legal advice before proceeding.
You may get better advice from others on AAM.


ONQ.
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Thanks very much sound advice

Was only repairs to houses so did not get contract as trusted him

In fairness 99.9% of builders are honest but there is always one and I seem to ahve been landed with him

noel
 
T McGibney said:
If its any consolation, a large majority of Revenue Audits yield no additional tax liability for the taxpayer. Also, although I have no idea how Revenue process vexatious-sounding reports from 'concerned citizens', I'm sure a lot of them end up in the bin.
Click to expand...

It's not a large majority of Revenue Audits that yield no additional liability, but a substantial minority...

Agree with you about the spurious "good citizens" reports, if all appears above board with the person being reported I'm sure they'd get binned...
 
noel123ie said:
Thanks very much sound advice

Was only repairs to houses so did not get contract as trusted him

In fairness 99.9% of builders are honest but there is always one and I seem to ahve been landed with him

noel
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You're very welcome Noel.

Thanks for pointing out that there are many fine builders out there.
Let me say I'm not making comments on builders in general.
Calling that person a "builder" per se might be an error.

Consider getting a builder to give you an estimate.
C2 registered, insured, no-nonsense type.
The other guy would see his difficulty.
 
noel123ie said:
In fairness 99.9% of builders are honest but there is always one and I seem to have been landed with him
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You also over paid him 2K, your brother over paid him 4K and you've now recommended him to someone else to be stung.

You cannot evict him with one weeks notice. Are you registered with the PRTB.

What makes you think he could damage property?

Did you go to the pub yesterday where he was to ask for some rent, seeing as he has money for non essentials he could have paid you some rent.
 
Bronte said:
You also over paid him 2K, your brother over paid him 4K and you've now recommended him to someone else to be stung.

You cannot evict him with one weeks notice. Are you registered with the PRTB.

What makes you think he could damage property?

Did you go to the pub yesterday where he was to ask for some rent, seeing as he has money for non essentials he could have paid you some rent.
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Hi Bronte

yes registered with PRTB

I dont know that he could but who knows?

I would never approach someone in a pub with drink on them over a dispute

It would not be a good thing to do I think

Noel
 
Bronte said:
Would you have a link to statistics on this?
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[broken link removed]

The report linked shows the proportion of cases not yielding any additional liability from Random Audits (68%), where the taxpayer is picked entirley at random.

I can only say anecdotally that in cases where the taxpayers are selected for audit using REAP, the proportion of nil-yielding audits decreases, which makes sense, otherwise what would be the point of doing targeted audits..!
 
noel123ie said:
I would never approach someone in a pub with drink on them over a dispute

It would not be a good thing to do I think
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Agreed, next time catch him on the way into the pub :) definitely pointless afterwards :D

You're going to have to outsmart him if you want the work done and to evict him.
 
Noel
In the first instance tell him the rent is going up to market rates with a rental agreement and deposit. This is you being fair to him. At this point he has a choice whether to stay or leave.
I dont think renting to someone that is also working for you-formally or informally is a good idea. Best keep everything above board and at arms length.
 
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