Tenant just served notice - saying deposit is months notice

Looking for your help please.
Have had tenant in property for 6 months now and have bent over backwards for them. Refurbed (painted) the house etc (eventhough 3 years old). Reduced rent and have done everything asked.

She wanted to go on RAS and it didnt work out so now she has served me 1 month notice and told me that the deposit will serve as my rent for October. We had a fixed term contract which she willingly signed up to in March so has another 5 months to go. (i reduced rent x 2 during this time)
Am registered with PRTB but cannot wait 40 days to get a response as she will be gone with a months rent etc..

What are my options.. Can I evict her with a days notice. Can the guards do anthing to help me?.
It might seem trivial but I want to persue this and do not want her in my property for another day.
Thanks for your advise.

My sincere advice is to be glad she's going without a fuss. I understand your frustration at her ignorance and her breaking a legal lease but if you pursue her you'll likely end up further out of pocket. Try to focus your energy on getting a replacement tenant in in a timely manner and hope for better luck next time. There are many horror stories of tenants wrecking property/not paying rent for months on end/causing havoc with neighbours etc. to think about. You are relatively lucky.

PRTB will be of practically no use in this situation I believe. You'd need to sue her for breach of lease. DO NOT EVICT her if she's going to leave of her own free will in a month's time or you'll regret it as she sounds like she knows how to play the system ;-)

Oh, sorry for your troubles-some tenants can be a real pain.

Hi there,
The exact same thing happened to me and PRTB were no help at the time (though it was one of the first years of PRTB so maybe things have improved). I agree iwth the previous poster.
One of the reasons I was glad to get out of the landlord business.
cas

As a long term landlord I fully agree with Murphaph except I would have better things to do then going after a breach of lease tenant, particularly one trying to get RAS.

Strictly speaking, her deposit should not be serving as her final month's rent, as the deposit is there to service any repairs that need to be carried out as a result of her tenancy. However, given you want to have her out ASAP you may want to let this slide.

To ensure the place is left in a decent condition, it might be a good idea to call around (announced and scheduled at least a week in advance) two or three times before she leaves, including the day she leaves. In fairness to you, you proably need to call around at least twice anyway: once now to check if anything needs to be repaired while she's there and once on the day she leaves.

Also, unless a criminal act is carried out, the Gardaí won't get involved. This is ultimately a civil matter so it won't really involve them, unless things get really out of control .

Hope this helps.

All good advise given above. The tenant has alot more rights than the landlord once they have been living in the house for 6 months. At lease you are geting your rent. Forget about it and go about finding your next tenant.

Thank you all for your answers I guess I knew that this would be the answer I would get..

Unfortunately the PRTB is just typical of the kind of system that we have in this country.

Its ok for a tenant to sign a contract for a year stating they are liable for all rent during that year and then walk away with 5 months to go technically leaving me 5K in debt... given the current rental climate yet she can go elsewhere and get rental allowance of a €1K a month from the social... and I have no recourse against them.

What I would really like to do is not worth mentioning here.!!

Thanks again.. I think its time to sell up!

polo1 said:

Thank you all for your answers I guess I knew that this would be the answer I would get..

Unfortunately the PRTB is just typical of the kind of system that we have in this country.

Its ok for a tenant to sign a contract for a year stating they are liable for all rent during that year and then walk away with 5 months to go technically leaving me 5K in debt... given the current rental climate yet she can go elsewhere and get rental allowance of a €1K a month from the social... and I have no recourse against them.

What I would really like to do is not worth mentioning here.!!

Thanks again.. I think its time to sell up!

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I think you need to modify your thinking here. Leases are great and I understand your frustration but things have changed completely in the last 18 months. I actually just left a rental house because the landlord wanted to tie a rent reduction (only reduced to the market rate) in with a new 12-month lease. I had to say goodbye because my company has moved to a 4-day week with no signs of improvement as yet. Therfore I can't make such a commitment. Apart from that I was a model tenant and happy to stay. Now my old house is empty and the landlord has had to drop the rent further.

I don't see anything wrong with what your tenant did and I think you should be more understanding of the new economic reality. Rather than hoping you can evict her with a days notice or go to the guards try to be a bit more understanding.

polo1 said:

Its ok for a tenant to sign a contract for a year stating they are liable for all rent during that year and then walk away with 5 months to go technically leaving me 5K in debt

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I have an issue with this as the tenant did not leave you 5K in debt.

Calico said:

I don't see anything wrong with what your tenant did and I think you should be more understanding of the new economic reality. Rather than hoping you can evict her with a days notice or go to the guards try to be a bit more understanding.

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The tenant did do something wrong. She signed an agreement to pay one year's rent for the use of the house for one year. She broke her word and broke the (civil) law.

How would you feel if your landlord turfed you out mid lease because he got a better offer (higher rent)? This didn't happen during the boom when rents were increasing month on month because it would have been illegal for a landlord to do it. It seems ok to some people when tenants break their side of the deal though.....strange country. In Germany (depsite all the horror stories of tenants rights blah blah) most tenants wouldn't dream of breaking the terms of their lease and would always see out the year. Even when their leases run on (like our part IV tenancies) they almost always have to give 3 months notice to give the landlord a chance to get someone new in. They just accept this as fair to all concerned and play by the rules.

Sorry but I am more than understanding and aware of the current climate.. As I said in my first post. I reduced the rent during the period and also renovated the house which was perfect because I wanted to keep my tenant. Effectively my tenants is leaving me in 5K debt cause they did fulfill the terms of the lease, and i may not get another tenant. In addition their is readvertising costs, PRTB registration cost and my time costs....

I rented for 13 years (both here and abroad) and never once did I break a lease - because I signed a lease to say differently...
Thank you all