Tenant wants to break contract after 5 months

My tenant signed a year's lease last August. I've just received a text message from her telling me she's giving me a month's notice because her children hate the location.

She says she knows a local man (also known to the letting agent) who might be interested.

My understanding is that she must continue to pay rent until another tenant is found (by me or her or letting agent).

I'm living out of the country so this is a right pain in the neck which I do not need.

I don't have the contract to hand but would appreciate some advice just so I can respond to her.

Thanks.

Any use?

http://www.irishlandlord.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1979
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She has the right to assign the remainder of the lease to another party - you do not have to consent to this, but if you do not then she can validly serve notice of termination and she is entitled to leave. It doesn't much matter what the actual lease says, this is one of the statutory rights that can't be overwritten by a lease.

The legislation isn't great on the specifics of this, i.e. if she wanted to assign it to parties totally unsuitable to the property (say a family of 8 to a one bed) do you have grounds to refuse and hold her to it. It just says the right to assign is there.

If the letting agent reckons this other guy is ok, then you may be well advised to consent. Technically, if she is assigning the lease then I'd think it should be seemless, the dwelling will be subject to a tenancy at all times and rent will be paid at all times (it's only a matter of which of the two parties is responsible). The new tenant will come in midway through the lease and the lease will still only run until next July/August.

An alternative and real-world approach, assuming the new tenant is willing to, is to have them sign a new lease and scrap the old tenancy outright.

Thanks a million, Bugler, just the info I needed.
No offence, ClubMan, I read those links too.

HMC - you may find ,as many landlords have ,that contracts are not worth the paper they are written on -at least from the landlords point of view.

Supposing that she doesn't find a replacement - what will you do? - go to a lawyer and sue her? Legally you are in the right and have every chance of (after time ,costs and some stress) of winning your case. But "winning" doesn't mean you'll get your money. So you have to take action to get your money . She doesn't have any? "I've two kids to support,judge" . Maybe she'll promsie to pay bit by bit over the next two years. Oh ,there's those legal fees and spending a day in court and....

And so it goes on. This is the worst picture I'm painting. It's possible that a threatening letter will work. If it doesn't then forget it and move on.

oldnick said:

HMC - you may find ,as many landlords have ,that contracts are not worth the paper they are written on -at least from the landlords point of view.

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I completely agree with you and have never myself bothered with a contract, if they stay they stay and if they go they go.

oldnick said:

This is the worst picture I'm painting. It's possible that a threatening letter will work.

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Nice! Or HMC could continue as is - which seems to be to deal with the tenant on a mature/reasonable basis and in all likelyhood the tenant will respond in kind in pursuit of a mutually agreeable solution to the issue.

+ 1 To OldNick and Bronte they are not worth the paper they are written on unless you want to take them all the way to court I'd like to see what the poor judge would do with that. It’s not worth the hassle don’t know how long you are a landlord but that is just one of the trials of being one. I would say it will be less of a 'pain in the neck' to just move on. Even though I'm a landlord here for many years I still despair of the whole letting situation here for both the landlord and the tenant as there are few rules that are set in concrete. My sister who is renting in Germany (less than half population own their own homes) was in a situation lately where the house she was living in for nearly 20 years was being sold and the laws are so straight forward that nobody was in doubt what was law. Maybe now that it is not a priority anymore to rush out and buy a house here things will change as there will be more tenants but that doesn't mean making scapegoats out of landlords either as believe it or not some of us are ok.

What is annoying is that my tenant does not see that a contract is there to protect HER as well. I wonder what she would have done had I decided after 2 months to chuck her out?

I wrote an email to the agent yesterday and said that she could move out end March but only on condition that she continues to pay her rent. If this local man she mentions works out to my satisfaction, all well and good, but I'm calling the shots, not her.

When I checked my bank account this morning the rent had not been paid so I wrote a stern email first thing to the agent telling him that if my tenant wants me to be sympathetic to her case, then she needed to rectify the situation within 48hrs. The rent was in my account by lunchtime.