Letting agent will not return deposit

N

Nutso

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I'm posting this on behalf of a friend who is a foreign national.

She rented a house 3 years ago through a letting agent. Deposit was paid to the letting agent, however the rental contract has the landlord's name on it.

She has now given notice on the house to the letting agent, but he says that it's nothing to do with him and that she needs to contact her landlord regarding her notice and also regarding the return of her deposit of €650.

Does anyone know what her rights are? Is she entitled to have the deposit returned from the letting agent as this is who she gave the deposit to?

Edited to add: the house is in fantastic condition and they have been great tenants. If anything the house will be returned in better condition than they got it in.

Any advice?
TIA
 
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I had a similar situation a couple of years - had rented an apartment through one of the big agencies, dealt with them for first lease and agreeing second lease, paid them the deposit although the cheque was made out to the landlord.

at the end of the second term the agency also referred us to the landlord to discuss the depoist - I think this is because they are letting agents rather than management agents so they simply hand the money to the landlord and charge them a fee.

In our case we made a number of calls to the landlord and were promised a cheque was on the way a couple of times, he seemed to keep forgetting about it, so we sent an SAE and got the full deposit back the next week.

so there may not be anything sinister in their agent not dealing with the refund, your friend should contact the landlord asap
 
This is normal practice. The estate agent will normally pass the deposit onto the landlord. The lease should state how much money is being held on deposit.

Did your friend take photos of the property before leaving? She should to prove that the property is in good condition. If the landlord is not forthcoming with the deposit, then she should request the deposit in writing(saving a copy). She should then contact the PRTB.
 
Nutso said:
Any advice?
TIA
Click to expand...

I think she should give the notice to the landlord.

Your friend should familiarise herself with Terminating a Tenancy.

It is important that a tenant serves a valid notice of termination as otherwise he/she might not be entitled to a refund of any deposit paid.

http://public.prtb.ie/DownloadDocs/Terminating_Tenancy.doc

A sample notice of termination of tenancy can be found here;

http://public.prtb.ie/DownloadDocs/ExampleNotice.doc

If your friend wants to leave soon, it might be worth her while contacting her landlord first and asking what notice he would accept, he might accept a lot less than the 56 days he is entitled to as the tenancy has lasted more than 2 years.
 
To update:

I had forgotten to mention that she had in fact terminated the notice with the landlord by letter in December but had no reponse and was unable to contact him by phone on his mobile or place of business.

Anyway to update, she called to his place of business (about an hours drive away) and discovered it had gone into liquidation that morning so I guess he had other things on his mind. She spoke with him and agreed the final two weeks rent to be taken from the deposit and the remainder of the deposit to be refunded on inspection.

So it looks like it all turned out okay.
 
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