T
tantamount
Guest
this is in republic of ireland.
i've lived at a house for three years, rented, sharing with 5 other people. the house was in a bit of a state so i put in a lot of man hours doing repairs, rewiring, repainting, and general maintanance. but the person who collects our rent does nothing to keep up the house.
i say "person who collects our rent" because he only calls himself the landlord when it suits his needs, otherwise, when there's something that needs fixing, he says "i just own the lease and am doing all this as a favour to my friend, who lives in switzerland, so i shouldn't have to pay any of my own money toward this house." i recently gave my month's notice that i was moving out. the sewage that's leaking up through the floor of my bathroom has gotten worse, the water damage from the bathroom above the kitchen has gotten much worse where along with rust-coloured paint chips caking the surface the ceiling is visibly bowed. for three years i've been asking for the rubbish in the back garden to be removed, and for three years he has either ignored me or said he would get a skip. (there were three rusting boilers, a rusting oven, bits of chairs and a moldering matress, all stranded in the garden.) only recently did the rubbish finally disappear, and i discovered that this was only because a health inspector was coming around (the neighbours had finall made a formal complaint about the sewage build-up).
then there's the matter of the heating. the radiators are heated by and oil-fired furnace. there is constantly the smell of fumes emitting from the shed, and every time we get a new tank (couple hundred euro) it only lasts a couple days. every winter we've had a collective total of about ten days of working heat. and by working i mean that a few radiators will work downstairs, for a night or two, before breaking again, while everyone upstairs freezes, or relies on personal electric heaters while he charges us for the incurred electricity as well as the repeated installation of the tanks. the reason it takes so long to get anything done about the heating, each winter, is because (quoting the "landlord"), "the landlord has an arrangement with a plumber who's always been the plumber of this building, an old friend of his dad, so we get the plumbing for free so you guys don't have to pay for it, but i don't have his number..." and then he proceeds to tell the story of how last christmas we were freezing for a month, waiting for the plumber to show up, and when he finally did he was without any tools. ha ha. he tries to make it into a joke, meanwhile we still have no heating.
also, we don't see the bills. he takes the bills and pays them and "keeps meaning to get around to telling us how much we owe" but never does. last time we got a house 'bill' it was last year with a pencil-written note on our kitchen table saying how much each person owed since the previous year.
anyway, i won't go on and on, but i finally saved up enough to move out of the house. i did this by refusing to pay rent for a few months. now i've found a place, have moved in, and i've offered to pay the debt that i owe him for the rent in monthly installed amounts that i can afford (even though i don't think he deserves it. i want to pay the debt to clear my own honour and conscience). i believe that he was lax to press me on paying rent during the last months when i've been saving up for a new place because the longer he keeps someone in the house the more 'invisible bills' he can charge.
so, now that i've actually moved out of the house and am out of his range, he's furious that he doesn't have the money. there was never anything signed when i moved in, and he obviously doesn't keep a rent book of any kind, and all the deposits into his account are cash. nevertheless, he keeps threatening legal action. despite my offers for repayment (which would clear the debt within 6 months), he's threatened to get his solicitor involved to get me to sign a contract, and to tie in my family in the matter (unfortunately he has the contact info for one of my aunts), and to call gardai and have me thrown out of the country (he knows i arrived here on a visitor's visa from the u.s. several years ago but didn't know, until i told him in a recent email, that i've since made my presence registered, etc.) i tried explaining, in an email, that i could have walked away easily without paying him, but that i'm offering to pay my debt so we should come to an arrangement (and that i'm not even charging him for all the work i put into the house). in response he's threatened to sell on my debt to a debt collector who will deal with me accordingly.
so... from anyone who actually read the pertinent info up there, can you offer any advice? what legal grounds does he really have to stand on as we've no written contract and no physical evidence that i lived in the house? can he actually sell on the debt in those circumstances? how do you deal with someone to whom you owe a verbally-agreed debt who refuses to make a personal arrangement to get the debt paid off and instead insists on using the law or debt collectors?
thanks much.
i've lived at a house for three years, rented, sharing with 5 other people. the house was in a bit of a state so i put in a lot of man hours doing repairs, rewiring, repainting, and general maintanance. but the person who collects our rent does nothing to keep up the house.
i say "person who collects our rent" because he only calls himself the landlord when it suits his needs, otherwise, when there's something that needs fixing, he says "i just own the lease and am doing all this as a favour to my friend, who lives in switzerland, so i shouldn't have to pay any of my own money toward this house." i recently gave my month's notice that i was moving out. the sewage that's leaking up through the floor of my bathroom has gotten worse, the water damage from the bathroom above the kitchen has gotten much worse where along with rust-coloured paint chips caking the surface the ceiling is visibly bowed. for three years i've been asking for the rubbish in the back garden to be removed, and for three years he has either ignored me or said he would get a skip. (there were three rusting boilers, a rusting oven, bits of chairs and a moldering matress, all stranded in the garden.) only recently did the rubbish finally disappear, and i discovered that this was only because a health inspector was coming around (the neighbours had finall made a formal complaint about the sewage build-up).
then there's the matter of the heating. the radiators are heated by and oil-fired furnace. there is constantly the smell of fumes emitting from the shed, and every time we get a new tank (couple hundred euro) it only lasts a couple days. every winter we've had a collective total of about ten days of working heat. and by working i mean that a few radiators will work downstairs, for a night or two, before breaking again, while everyone upstairs freezes, or relies on personal electric heaters while he charges us for the incurred electricity as well as the repeated installation of the tanks. the reason it takes so long to get anything done about the heating, each winter, is because (quoting the "landlord"), "the landlord has an arrangement with a plumber who's always been the plumber of this building, an old friend of his dad, so we get the plumbing for free so you guys don't have to pay for it, but i don't have his number..." and then he proceeds to tell the story of how last christmas we were freezing for a month, waiting for the plumber to show up, and when he finally did he was without any tools. ha ha. he tries to make it into a joke, meanwhile we still have no heating.
also, we don't see the bills. he takes the bills and pays them and "keeps meaning to get around to telling us how much we owe" but never does. last time we got a house 'bill' it was last year with a pencil-written note on our kitchen table saying how much each person owed since the previous year.
anyway, i won't go on and on, but i finally saved up enough to move out of the house. i did this by refusing to pay rent for a few months. now i've found a place, have moved in, and i've offered to pay the debt that i owe him for the rent in monthly installed amounts that i can afford (even though i don't think he deserves it. i want to pay the debt to clear my own honour and conscience). i believe that he was lax to press me on paying rent during the last months when i've been saving up for a new place because the longer he keeps someone in the house the more 'invisible bills' he can charge.
so, now that i've actually moved out of the house and am out of his range, he's furious that he doesn't have the money. there was never anything signed when i moved in, and he obviously doesn't keep a rent book of any kind, and all the deposits into his account are cash. nevertheless, he keeps threatening legal action. despite my offers for repayment (which would clear the debt within 6 months), he's threatened to get his solicitor involved to get me to sign a contract, and to tie in my family in the matter (unfortunately he has the contact info for one of my aunts), and to call gardai and have me thrown out of the country (he knows i arrived here on a visitor's visa from the u.s. several years ago but didn't know, until i told him in a recent email, that i've since made my presence registered, etc.) i tried explaining, in an email, that i could have walked away easily without paying him, but that i'm offering to pay my debt so we should come to an arrangement (and that i'm not even charging him for all the work i put into the house). in response he's threatened to sell on my debt to a debt collector who will deal with me accordingly.
so... from anyone who actually read the pertinent info up there, can you offer any advice? what legal grounds does he really have to stand on as we've no written contract and no physical evidence that i lived in the house? can he actually sell on the debt in those circumstances? how do you deal with someone to whom you owe a verbally-agreed debt who refuses to make a personal arrangement to get the debt paid off and instead insists on using the law or debt collectors?
thanks much.
