Bringing dispute to PRTB

B

Badger

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I was in rented accommodation last year with six other students. The deposit was a month and a halfs rent, individual leases were signed and rent was paid by credit transfer. At the end of the lease a number of isues arose:
  1. Four of the tenants stopped their credit transfers a month early
  2. A number of utility bills were left unpaid
  3. The house was not left in great shape
Consequently the landlord with-held all of the deposit. The two other tenants and myself- who paid the last months rent- are unhaapy with this situation. Our opinions are:
  1. Non payement of rent is between the landlord and the non-paying tenant and our deposits should not be affected by this.
  2. Any expenses the landlord incurred in cleaning the house should be detucted from our deposits provided such expenses are backed up bt receipts, invoices, etc.
  3. Unpaid bills should be detucted from our deposits.
After detucting cleaning expenses and unpaid bills, we are still owed a substanial amount of money. We brought the case to the PRTB mediation service and nothing was agreed. We now have the option to bring our case to the PRTB adjudication service.

Do we have a case or are we just wating our time?
 
If there are individual leases and four of the six tenants breached theirs but the landlord breached those of the other two tenants then these two tenants would seem to have a strong case in my amateur view.
 
Will have a go for it so. Have nothing to lose. Will let ye know how we get on.
 
Its a bit of a vicious circle. A lot of people stop paying the rent a month in advance if they really feel that the landlord is going to withold their deposit, and unfortunately its often with good reason. However it does put you on shaky legal ground, and if other tenants are paying their way they are basically screwed.

You could take this to the PTRB but they might say that the dispute is between all tenants as a group. Could still be quite difficult to get your money back.

I can understand as former co-tenants have put me into this position on a couple of occasions, but fortunately for me, I did get something back last time this happened. Since then I make an agreement with co-tenants as I know that if we don't all take the same approach anybody who does pay will lose their deposit. The best way to prevent this happening when sharing is to distribute bills in each person's name where possible and if somebody does this then the others withold bills due under that persons name - very effective!
 
lff12 said:
The best way to prevent this happening when sharing is to distribute bills in each person's name where possible and if somebody does this then the others withold bills due under that persons name - very effective!
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The bills have nothing to do with the landlord tenant agreement and should never be taken out of the deposit as they are a completely seperate legal agreement between the tenant on the bill and the service provider. It's up to the service provider to go after any outstanding debts. Now if the landlord keeps all the bills in his name because he doesn't want a paper trail to show he's renting out the property, well that's a different issue.
 
Howitzer said:
Now if the landlord keeps all the bills in his name because he doesn't want a paper trail to show he's renting out the property, well that's a different issue.
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Thats not the only reason to keep the bill in his name. If he is renting a place out to 7 students it is quite possible none of them would be willing or able to take out the bills in their own name so he could have been trying to accomodate them (this is obviously a risk to the landlord).
 
dam099 said:
Thats not the only reason to keep the bill in his name. If he is renting a place out to 7 students it is quite possible none of them would be willing or able to take out the bills in their own name so he could have been trying to accomodate them (this is obviously a risk to the landlord).
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Fair enough, and the PRTB resolution process should take that into account. BTW I'm not suggesting this landlord in particular is evading tax. The fact that he's registered with the PRTB makes that self evident.
 
Bills were in landlords name. He was not registered with the PRTB at the time- may stand against him.
 
Badger said:
Bills were in landlords name. He was not registered with the PRTB at the time- may stand against him.
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Oh dear.

Well I hope all the "property investors" posting on numerous other threads who've been spouting on how sure they'll never get caught out by not registering with the PRTB / (re)paying stamp / paying tax on income / paying CGT, read this thread. Just takes one disagreement and your house of cards can come falling down. Tenants are much better informed these days than some landlords by the looks of things.

Would like to hear the PRTB judgement on this one. Fair play to you Badger for standing up for your rights.
 
Went to the PRTB tribunal, went very well for us. They decided that the landlord should pay the three of us around 2/3s of our deposit. Got our cheques there last week. Alls well that ends well! Thanks for all yer advice.
 
I read something in the Irish Times yesterday saying that the vast majority (80%+ if I'm not mistaken) of tenants claims for refunds of witheld deposits are upheld by the PRTB.
 
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