Rent a room tenant - unemployed and Pregnant.

[ryan-neil]

Hi,

I have a two bed where i rent out the second room to cover a loan and credit card i used to renovate it. At the moment i have redundancy hanging over my head and to make it worse in relation to the second room which curently is rented to the ideal tenant, a quiet irish women who has never caused a problem, no noise, very clean etc in two years told me recently she has been put on a 3 month contract by here employer and is 5 months pregnant (taught she was just gaining weight ). Not mine by the way, OH would murder me , She says it is unlikly they will renew her contract as her employer is letting contractors go to reduce costs and father not around but that's not my business etc.

I am unsure of what i can do next. If i rent her my entire apartment then i loose my TRS so thats not an option, most likley she could not afford it and if i loose my tenant then things get very bad money wise and it would be very difficult to find a new one as there is plenty of rooms available locally. I don't know what rights she has re Jobseekers etc or even rent allowance etc. Anyone know of anyway of keeping the tenant without it becomming a mess and having to explain to social welfare who i am, registering as a landlord and for tax etc or is this my only option ?

I could move in with my OH for a short period and keep my room in my apartment or is this fraud even if all the bills are still in my name etc. Basically currently i have a rock one side and a hard place the other.

 

[cleverclogs7]

well if shes a single mom then will will get her rent allowance after baby is born plus her other benifits.your lucky shes a good tenent so id cut her some slack till she gets sorted.as far as i know you just have to registar with the PRTB 70euro.
think dublin,kildare,wicklow r/a single mom and 1child is 950 p.m plus she will get her weekly loan parent,204e p.w ? Usually people/landlords help tenents out by filling up the forms and putting a lesser amount if the rent is higher and the tenent makes up the difference at the end of the month.but rents are coming down a lot so its up to you.

 

[ryan-neil]

cleverclogs7 thanks for the reply. Obviously myself or her staying is not really an option after she has her child although i would be intrested in hearing from anyone who let to a room to a single mom but as i read your reply that would be very unlikly as she would get enough Rent Allowance to cover the entire rent. I had no intention of asking her to leave up to her due date but i may re-evaluate re moving out myself once she has her child and drawing up a proper lease if she is intrested. It would save alot of hassle although i would rather keep it as my primary residance even if i was not there a lot of the time both for avoiding the entire tax headache and the face i just finished renovations. I have a feeling it would but mainly i think the social will end up seeing me as co-habitating just for living there.