# Rental deposit being kept by landlord?



## sully (16 Mar 2007)

Hi All,

I am just wondering if anyonoe can help here.

The situaton is that we left a rental house and the Landlord is refusing to pay back the Deposit. the house is due to go on sale soon and the reason they say they wont give our deposit back is they calim damage done to a door frame and want to charge for the full door frame. they also want to charge an extra weeks rent, we did arrange to stay for a couple of extra days, through the agency dealing with us and there was no mention of extra rent charges being made to us. 

Personally i think they want to use the deposit as a means to fix up the house cheaply at our expense. Is there anything we can do in this matter.  We did leave the place in a good state and cleaned the house thouroughly before we left to ensure we got the deposit back, i wish we hadn't now.

Who deals with these situations and who best to contact about this?

Thanks,
Sully.


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## CCOVICH (16 Mar 2007)

Have you had a look at the PRTB website?


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## ninsaga (16 Mar 2007)

Was the door frame damaged during the tenancy?


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## sully (16 Mar 2007)

we did no damage to the door frame, the place was rented out before us and to be honest i didn't even notice any damage to the door frame. We have been ringing the landlords agents and they are saying that they are going to keep the full deposit which is a lot of money for us. the deposit was 1500 Eur and i doubt a door frame would cost that much and i am a bit peeved as to the charging of the rent when we had all,our stuff out on the day we arranged and the agents never mentioned that they would charge us for this basically the rent was up on the 28th of february and we moved all our stuff out on the 3rd of April. We had arranged for the agent to come out and inspect the place on the day but they never showed up and now we are hearing all this stuff.


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## money man (16 Mar 2007)

Your rights are well documented on PRTB website. You seem to be in the right from your imformation. i would not delay in taking a case and i would inform the agent and landlord in wrinting. Tell the agent you will give joe duffy a ring in the meantime if they facilitate the landlord illegally witholding your money from you.


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## Sue Ellen (17 Mar 2007)

sully said:


> we did no damage to the door frame, the place was rented out before us and to be honest i didn't even notice any damage to the door frame. We have been ringing the landlords agents and they are saying that they are going to keep the full deposit which is a lot of money for us. the deposit was 1500 Eur and i doubt a door frame would cost that much and i am a bit peeved as to the charging of the rent when we had all,our stuff out on the day we arranged and the agents never mentioned that they would charge us for this basically the rent was up on the 28th of february and we moved all our stuff out on the *3rd of April*. We had arranged for the agent to come out and inspect the place on the day but they never showed up and now we are hearing all this stuff.


 
I think you mean the 3rd March and not April?


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## kiwifruit (17 Mar 2007)

if the tenancy was up on the 28th feb and you didnt move out till the 3rdmarch,dont you think you should pay for the few extra days you stayed???


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## liteweight (18 Mar 2007)

kiwifruit said:


> if the tenancy was up on the 28th feb and you didnt move out till the 3rdmarch,dont you think you should pay for the few extra days you stayed???



When one of our tenants was leaving to return home last year, we had no problem with allowing her to stay rent free for a week as long as she didn't mind us showing the place. She was a good tenant who kept the place well and cleaned it up toward the end of her tenancy. We could have let the place the day after her lease expired but asked the new tenant to wait a few days as we'd promised her she could stay. Live and let live I say!


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## kiwifruit (18 Mar 2007)

fair enough,liteweight..not all landlords would be as generious as you,afterall a contract is binding


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## liteweight (18 Mar 2007)

kiwifruit said:


> fair enough,liteweight..not all landlords would be as generious as you,afterall a contract is binding



Yes her contract was binding and perhaps we were generous. The reality is however, that, although we found a new tenant immediately, leases had to be drawn up, deposits paid and references checked. She had most of her packing done for the viewings and I didn't see the point in making her pay for a hotel while the place she'd been living in for a  year lay empty.


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## Yachtie (19 Mar 2007)

liteweight said:


> Yes her contract was binding and perhaps we were generous. The reality is however, that, although we found a new tenant immediately, leases had to be drawn up, deposits paid and references checked. She had most of her packing done for the viewings and I didn't see the point in making her pay for a hotel while the place she'd been living in for a year lay empty.


 
I absolutely agree with this. If you've had a good tenant who paid they rent on time and kept the place clean, a couple of days makes no huge difference to you. 

I had a landlady like this a few years back and she was fantastic! After I've moved out, I highly recommended her to a few friends looking for a place as I know that she has several properties around town and is constantly looking for tenants.


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## Purple (20 Mar 2007)

As a former Landlord I agree with liteweight. I also agree with sully, €1500 is way over the top to fix or replace a doorframe. A landlord also has to expect some reasonable ware and tear, which is tax deductible, so keeping a deposit for minor damage is, in my opinion, very bad form.


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## sully (20 Mar 2007)

Hi All,

Thank you for your responses, as regards the PRTB can you access this service allover the country, what i mean is that we were renting in Leinster and we have now moved down the country can we apply in the county we are living in and get the sitaution dealt with in the county we are currently living in or do we have to sort this out in the county we were renting in. Its just that obviously it would suit us better to sort this out down below.. Or would it be better to use the small calims court. 

Also in reply to Kiwifruit i reckon the rent for the few days is counted in the withholding of the deposit. We dont really know what is going on as we are only hearing sketchy details from the agents, who keep fobbing us off. I will let you know how i get on. perhaps the mention of taking it further might cause them to rethink, although i doubt it.

I will see what the agency say and see if they are willing to give any deposit back.

Thanks,
Sully.


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## Purple (20 Mar 2007)

Do you know for sure that the landlord knows the deposit is being retained?


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## sully (20 Mar 2007)

I'm Pretty sure they do as that is what the agency has said, so i can only take their word for that.

Also there was no contract applying when we were leaving as we had a contract for first 12 months and then we got no updated contract for the couple of months after that. we were informed about 2 weeks before the tenacy agreement ended that the owner was thinking of selling and we tried arranging for our stuff to be moved out the weekend before the 27th but couldn't book a lorry in time for the weekend, so hence we stayed a further week to the 3 of march. 

Thanks,
Sully.


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## liteweight (20 Mar 2007)

I'd make very sure that the landlord knows the deposit was kept and that they charged extra.


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## mikeyny (20 Mar 2007)

In general the contract will roll over and continue on a month to month basis, at the landlords convienence . Get the Agent / landlord to breakdown the deposit retained ie. rent for the last week and damage to door .It might be a good idea in future to take pictures of any house you are renting and point out all the repairs that need to be made from the start at least you will have photos to back up your case .
Good luck with the PRTB by the way .


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## Dreamerb (22 Mar 2007)

sully said:


> as regards the PRTB can you access this service allover the country, what i mean is that we were renting in Leinster and we have now moved down the country can we apply in the county we are living in and get the sitaution dealt with in the county we are currently living in or do we have to sort this out in the county we were renting in. Its just that obviously it would suit us better to sort this out down below.. Or would it be better to use the small calims court.


The PRTB has responsibility no matter where in the country you are, so all you have to do is register your complaint with them (€25 euro - for details and forms, go to http://www.prtb.ie/disputes.htm). The Small Claims Court will probably refuse jurisdiction, since the PRTB is supposed to resolve complaints like this. 

It's also worth noting that according to their own statistics in 2005, _all_ deposit retention cases are resolved in favour of the tenant. This slightly overstates it, as I think some resolutions have involved part-refund to tenants rather than full refund... but there's a message for those landlords who withold ridiculous sums of money for damage which is really part of normal wear and tear, or on possibly spurious and certainly insufficiently documented ground. 

My strong advice is to tell the agent that if your deposit is not returned _in full_, and giving them a date by which it must be returned (say within in ten days or two weeks), you will register a complaint with PRTB. That should get things moving  

Good luck.


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