# Currently share a rented house: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?



## CluelessBob (24 Sep 2008)

How can a group of tenants legally go about removing a fellow housemate or get them to leave?

We currently share a rented house and have been having ongoing difficulties with one of our housemates. We have no lease. We have been living in the house for over a year, and have no issues with the landlord.

We really dont want to lose this house, as its a great and resonable place. But this housemate is unlikely to leave within the next 12 months, really leaving us with no option to move out.

The difficulties are significant. And have been ongoing for 2 years or more.


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## Bronte (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

Serve a valid termination notice to the landlord and go and rent the property without your problem 'tenant' when you all have left.


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## rmelly (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

Does the landlord have any issues with this 'problem' tenant?


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## Petal (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. When I was still renting we once had to ask someone to leave the house, it was very unpleasant and they were not responding in a nice manner although they left in the end.
So your only chances are either to sit down this person and collectively tell them you want them out or you engage the landlord, by either asking them to step in and help or you follow Bronte's advice....
I hope you get it sorted, it's so stressfull living with someone unpleasant.


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## rmelly (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*



Petal said:


> I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. When I was still renting we once had to ask someone to leave the house, it was very unpleasant and they were not responding in a nice manner although they left in the end.
> So your only chances are either to sit down this person and collectively tell them you want them out or you engage the landlord, by either asking them to step in and help or you follow Bronte's advice....
> I hope you get it sorted, it's so stressfull living with someone unpleasant.


 
Unless the landlord actually has issues with him, he may be weary to get involved, at the risk of a spurious claim to PRTB.


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## Petal (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

I was thinking maybe they could sign a lease and then the leaseholder could tell the person to leave. Or they could ask the landlord to tell them to move out. If there is no lease I assume the landlord can give notice whenever he likes?


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## MrMan (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*



Petal said:


> I was thinking maybe they could sign a lease and then the leaseholder could tell the person to leave. Or they could ask the landlord to tell them to move out. If there is no lease I assume the landlord can give notice whenever he likes?



You would assume wrong, not having a lease leaves the landlord more open to abuse than anything, tenants are protected by law and have rights even if the landlord doesn't do things exactly by the book. If the landlord has a rent book for the tenancy that counts instead of a lease anyway. I would think that the landlord would only get involved if the actions of the troublesome tenant were serious i.e theft, anti-social behaviour, but if it is a case of using you r butter from time to time or having BO then I wouldn't see how he could intervene.


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## CluelessBob (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

The "Problem tenant" has no issue with the Landlord.

We dont really want to go down the "Please leave" route. Asking somebody to leave is a very cold thing to do, and ideally we would really prefer not to do this. But we do need to know where we stand at the minute.

Our problems are more serious than using Butter / bread / Milk or shampoo. We don't have arguments like that here.


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## MrMan (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*



CluelessBob said:


> The "Problem tenant" has no issue with the Landlord.
> 
> We dont really want to go down the "Please leave" route. Asking somebody to leave is a very cold thing to do, and ideally we would really prefer not to do this. But we do need to know where we stand at the minute.
> 
> Our problems are more serious than using Butter / bread / Milk or shampoo. We don't have arguments like that here.




Can you reveal what type of problems you are encountering so that adequate advice can be given


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## tiger (24 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*



CluelessBob said:


> We dont really want to go down the "Please leave" route.


I don't understand.  You want someone else to ask/force the tenant to leave on your behalf?  Is the tenant "aware" of the situation?


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## sparkeee (25 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

tell the landlord you will all leave if this fella doesn't


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## CluelessBob (25 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*



tiger said:


> I don't understand. You want someone else to ask/force the tenant to leave on your behalf? Is the tenant "aware" of the situation?


 
The tenant is aware that we're not happy, but doesnt care what we think. And no we don't want somebody else to ask them to leave. 

The Problem is to do with house security. This tenant has a stranger staying over ( 3 to 4 nights per week on average ). We've had this stranger coming and going from the house for *4 months,* without a mention of this persons existance. It was only when the rest of us got talking recently, that we realised how long and how often this person is actually in the house. As we don't all be around together that much due to our jobs.

Last year a different person was staying over and it was only after 2 - 3 months when i found them in our kitchen at 7am one morning that the tenant came down and made a very brief introduction before leaving. This introduction was just a first name, and a week or 2 later i found the stranger letting themselves into the house at 1:30am. 

Girlfriends / Boyfriends staying over ( Any number of nights )are not a issue at all with us. But considering we all keep a lot of valuable items in the house, its important that we know who has access to the house.

Anytime its been mentioned, the tenants phone goes off or they have to head out. 

I'm sure the stranger is of good character, but we are still concerned about somebody coming and going from the house. We're concerned with the fact that the tenant thinks we don't need to know who is coming and going.


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## Petal (25 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

This is crazy. Surely all these strangers use up hot water, etc, so maybe you should tell your housemate that he has to pay more rent or a higher share of the utilities if he's having someone staying more or less all the time. That might solve the problem.


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## rmelly (25 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*

I take it you've satisfied yourselves that this isn't some cross dresser / multiple personalities type scenario?


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## Bronte (26 Sep 2008)

*Re: How do we get a fellow tenant to leave?*



CluelessBob said:


> The tenant is aware that we're not happy, but doesnt care what we think. And no we don't want somebody else to ask them to leave.
> 
> The Problem is to do with house security. This tenant has a stranger staying over ( 3 to 4 nights per week on average ). We've had this stranger coming and going from the house for *4 months,* without a mention of this persons existance. It was only when the rest of us got talking recently, that we realised how long and how often this person is actually in the house. As we don't all be around together that much due to our jobs.
> 
> ...


Well you've made me laugh - it that it, that's the only problem you have, I was expecting something horrendous.  If you share with other people you have to expect these things.


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## alaskaonline (26 Sep 2008)

totally agree with bronte. if that is the reason alone why you want this tenant out then you need to think again. i dont think it is that serious even though i do agree with the fact that the tenant should announce visitors when sharing a house with other people. in regards to the valuable items - don't have them lying around, full stop. what you're doing when somebody breaks into your house?

if the visitors of your tenant are going in and out on a regular basis i.e. staying for more than 2 weeks over night, then i would sit down with him/ her (the tenant) and inform him that bills need to be double paid on his behalf if this is ongoing. i'd say you would get back up on this one from the landlord. getting his lease/ renting the place actually terminated, i don't think you will, especially if there is no lease stating otherwise.


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## truthseeker (26 Sep 2008)

Why dont the rest of you just leave together (if you are all happy living together) and get a new place and leave this person behind?


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## CluelessBob (27 Sep 2008)

truthseeker said:


> Why dont the rest of you just leave together (if you are all happy living together) and get a new place and leave this person behind?


 
There are a few reasons we don't want to leave. Very cheap rent, excellent house and great parking. The area is quiet and the neighbours are great. 

This tenant won't pay a dime extra towards utility bills. 

None of us care about boyfriends / girlfriends staying over. Its not an issue with any of us. The rest of us never even discussed making the tenant pay extra towards the bills. 

We just seem to be in a position where we can't ask the tenant to do anything. If we said to the tenant "Just let us know that your seeing somebody, and they will be around a few days a week". The following week a new stranger will likely walk into the kitchen at 7am while im making coffee. A thief could break into our house at the minute and we would think he was a guest. 

We want to lay down some ground rules ( Very minor ones ), but can't as the tenant just won't comply. Thats why we want to know if we can turn around and say "Get your act together or get somewhere else to live". Hopefully the threat would be enough to change things.


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## truthseeker (27 Sep 2008)

CluelessBob - Reading this whole thread makes me think that no one wants to be the one to make the confrontation. 
If you seem to be in a position where you cant ask the tenant to do anything then I suggest that you change this. 
What makes him so difficult to approach? Is it just that he doesnt listen or change after something has been said?
If so the rest of you need to agree a consistent set of behaviours - so you (for example) say 'The rest of us dont appreciate encountering a stranger in the kitchen at 7am, if youre going to have someone over can you let us know/introduce person?'. The following week a different stranger appears and someone else encounters them, they say 'CluelessBob already expressed to you that we dont appreciate finding stranger in kitchen and asked you to let us know/introduce person'. Then ask tenant to remove person until house discussion has taken place at which point you gather everyone and let him know to the face that this is not acceptable behaviour - oh and while on subject itd be better to have house rules to keep everyone happy.
Ultimately if everyone stands together, stays calm and just continues to be consistent I cant see tenant not complying - unless he wants to be moaned at everytime he sets foot inside the door.

If that does not work then house meeting where everyone expresses that they would like him to leave.


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## rmelly (27 Sep 2008)

'House rules' in this situation are entirely voluntary and not 'enforceable' if one of the tenants decided not to comply - particularly if you won't involve the landlord. 

Even if there's 20 of you and there's a 19 / 1 majority, what will make the 1 comply if he can't be bothered?


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## CluelessBob (28 Sep 2008)

rmelly said:


> 'House rules' in this situation are entirely voluntary and not 'enforceable' if one of the tenants decided not to comply - particularly if you won't involve the landlord.
> 
> Even if there's 20 of you and there's a 19 / 1 majority, what will make the 1 comply if he can't be bothered?


 
Thats the problem we are facing. We know house rules are not effective here. Maybe if we had set house rules when we moved in, things may have been different. But to be honest, we didnt think it was important at the time. 

Because the rest of us never be about that much together, we never really got to discuss any problems we might be having. I only found out after talking to one of the others about some of the things going on. 

Our* "Guests" bad habits* range from never flushing the toilet ( After No 2's ), and just filling the toilet with toilet paper. To actually being caught *numerous *times using the toilet with the door wide open. These incidents happened when the guest knew that others were floating about the house. So it wasnt a case of " Oh i thought you were all out". 

*"Problem Tenants" bad habits ( Just a few )*
- Leaving the electric cooker On a good few times after cooking ( On for 5 6 hours before somebody noticed).

-Using the cooking rings on the electric cooker to heat the kitchen when we ran out of heating that morning. It wasnt freezing outside, and it wasnt that cold inside. 

-Leaving the heating in "Constant On" position in the evening, and heading out for the night. I've personally found the house hotter than Mexico the next morning on a few occasions.

The valuable items like Sound systems, Laptops, Ipods, Golf clubs, Tv's, Power tools, Printers, scanners are always around the house. The house itself is fairly secure, but not if you give some person you don't know a spare key. Our main concern is house security, not other minor things.


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## truthseeker (28 Sep 2008)

CluelessBob, if you think house rules are not enforceable and that you cannot find a way around making this person comply politely then I really dont see why you stay there.

Its either an issue thats important enough to you (and other tenants) to reduce the quality of life sufficently to move elsewhere or it isnt.

You say rent is cheap, parking is good etc... there is no reason why you couldnt find somewhere with similar good stuff - especially in the current rental market. Have you even investigated whats out there?

Im not really too sure what it is you want to hear here, there have been a number of different suggestions made from the other tenants leaving to go somewhere new together to laying down house rules, but you dont want to leave and you say house rules are not effective. 

What is your ideal outcome or way of handling this situation?


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## Rois (28 Sep 2008)

I sympathise with you, I couldn't live with someone like that and their "guests".  But seems like there is a communication problem in the house - have you all sat down and discussed the problem tenant ?  Have you spoken to the tenant himself about your issues with him? Have you actually asked him to leave at any stage on the basis that you are incompatible with his style of tenancy?  

It's easy to figure out the extras he's costing you in fuel consumption etc. Call ESB or Bord Gais for usage costs.

"Guests" should not have their own keys to the property. I would also speak to the landlord about this - I imagine he wouldn't be too happy to hear this either and could take some action himself.  You should also mention all the other issues to the landlord (leaving on cooker etc - fire risk?), lack of hygiene etc.  Surely any good landlord, who wants to keep good tenants, would respond appropriately i.e. serve him notice.


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## Lollix (29 Sep 2008)

The way I see it, you have three options if you want to solve this, either you leave or the problem tenant leaves, or the tenant modifies his/her behaviour.
If it were me, I'd have one try at getting the PT to see sense, then I'd be out of there. Plenty of good places for rent right now, you don't have to stay somewhere that you're not comfortable.
You could of course also consider packing up his stuff and putting it in the hall, and moving someone else into his room, but from what you say he might not notice!


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## CluelessBob (12 Oct 2008)

Different options were discussed. We talked about the rest of us moving to a new house. But that would prove to be good bit more expensive. As we really are getting this house a good bit cheaper than whats on the market at this very minute.

We figured it would be impossible to get rid of PT without legal problems. So i suggested we arrange with the Landlord to give us our notice, but only one of us actually would move. But the others didnt seem to think it would work. They seemed to think PT could still take legal action if they found out we were still living in the house. I don't really know what PT could do about it by then. 

Moving all PT's stuff out was not discussed. That would probably cause a lot of fun.


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## rmelly (12 Oct 2008)

CluelessBob said:


> Moving all PT's stuff out was not discussed. That would probably cause a lot of fun.


 
I'd love to see what that would cost you when PRTB get involved.


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## Bronte (13 Oct 2008)

There is absolutely nothing preventing you giving the landlord notice, and the remainder of your group re renting with a new lease from the landlord.


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## bond-007 (13 Oct 2008)

+1

Probably the best option tbh. Tell him you are all moving out and that he will have to find his own place.


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## rmelly (13 Oct 2008)

Bronte said:


> There is absolutely nothing preventing you giving the landlord notice, and the remainder of your group re renting with a new lease from the landlord.


 
The OP makes it sound like the rent they are paying is well below market rate - if so this gives the landlord the option to adjust now, if he chooses...


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## csirl (13 Oct 2008)

> "Guests" should not have their own keys to the property. I would also speak to the landlord about this - I imagine he wouldn't be too happy to hear this either and could take some action himself. You should also mention all the other issues to the landlord (leaving on cooker etc - fire risk?), lack of hygiene etc. Surely any good landlord, who wants to keep good tenants, would respond appropriately i.e. serve him notice.


 
I would have thought that a complaint to the landlord that this tenant is effectively subletting his room to another person would get the landlord to act. You could force the issue by asking the landlord for lower rent on the basis that there are now X+1 rather than X people living in the house, so rent is to be divided by X+1 per tenant now.

If this guy has people living in the house on a more or less permanent basis, then he needs the landlords permission and needs to pay for an extra person in the house. 

You should also insist that no 3rd parties are ever to have keys and if any of you find a stranger unattended in the house, you will turf him out immediately.


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## bond-007 (13 Oct 2008)

I assume the landlord has rented the house to 1 or 2 named persons and the rest are essentially sublets. How is the rent remitted to the landlord? All in one go from one person or individually from each person?

I can't see the landlord doing anything unless there is trouble for him. Is he registered with the PRTB?


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## AlastairSC (13 Oct 2008)

Have any of your collective discussions included the PT? If not would you all be willing to sit down around the table with him? If you can't collectively face this ( or assembling together is difficult logistically, why not write him a letter stating your concerns and asking for action from him? If it's signed by everyone and left out for him it may do the trick. At least he will be under no illusions about where you stand! You could mention that if not sorted by xxxx then you will all leave and he'll be out on his ear. You don't have to leave of course, just make it appear like you are. No need to involve the landlord and risk renegotiation of rent. A few cardboard boxes in the hall and similar might do.


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## CluelessBob (13 Oct 2008)

*AlastairSC:* No, PT has not been part of the collective discussions. And anytime a group meeting has been suggested, PT can never be there. PT prefers to talk to the rest of us on a one to one basis. PT won't ever hang around when there are more than one of us about. When the rest of us got talking, it wasnt a big discussion about PT. It was one of the others actually mentioned the guest being in the kitchen one morning, we all in turn stated that we has seen the same person at various times. Because we normally come and go at different times, we kinda all thought "How often is this person here?". We all be off work on different days as well, and don't normally be about the house on our days off. So the fact we all seen this guest coming and going sounded the alarm bells. We then recounted when we each had first seen the guest. But we never had an arranged meeting to discuss PT, it just happened we were all there that day. And PT's guest just came up. Up until that point we didnt even realise we had a problem. 

*bond-007:* There was no lease signed. But the Landlord registered with the PRTB shortly after we moved in. rent is paid into the Landlords bank account individually. The landlord has been great with everything, which is why we don't want to involve him unless its really needed. Rent receipts are supplied every year for tax relief.

*csirl:* I still don't quite know what the arrangement is with the guest. The person stays approx 3 or 4 nights per week. This has been on going for 5 months. I doubt the guest is assisting PT with rent, but i could be wrong. PT trys to cover it, by having them arrive very late and exit the house early in the morning. The person could well be considered a girlfriend / boyfriend. I don't think we could charge extra for a girlfriend / boyfriend staying over 3 or 4 nights a week. None of us would mind that too much. What we do mind is the fact that the person is never mentioned, and seems to have a free reign of the house when we're not there. I don't know if they have a permanent set of keys to the house, and its not something PT would admit to giving them. PT is fairly cunning when it comes to avoiding extra costs, and would prob argue that the guest only stays over the odd night. And would likely say the guest uses little or no additional electricity / hot water. Normally a housemate would introduce a Girlfriend or boyfriend to the others in the house, Like hey this is "First Name". Just a discreet nod to everybody else that the guest will be around. 


*rmelly:* Yeah it would cost us, if we went to the extreme of throwing them and their stuff out. I've seen a case recently, where a Landlord got fined 12k for turfing out tenants that didnt pay rent for 6 months and owed the Landlord 6k. But i assume the Landlord didnt give them proper notice in that case.


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