Problem with lease, rent and landlady

Hello

I have been renting an apartment for the past 21 months. Our last lease expired in December and we were never issued with a new one. We also were never provided with a copy of the last lease with the landlady's signature on it. The estate agent took our signed copy to the landlady to sign, she then was unable to get it back from the landlady. Despite numerous calls and a registered letter the landlady has failed to return the signed lease or to provide us with her PPS number.

Our problems now are:

1. The landlady now wants to increase our rent by €150 and make us sign another lease to be bound for a further year. We would be liable for the whole year's rent even if we buy our own place in the next few months and want to move out. Landlady is refusing to give us the option of a months notice - seems unreasonable since we're already here for 21 months.

2. Landlady has never provided us with her PPS number to claim tax relief and it seems she is not registered with the PRTB.

Her answer is sign the lease binding us to a further year (with €150 rent increase) or get out within the month.

We always intended to report her to the PRTB as we were leaving. We'd really like to stay a few more months here though. Our landlady is a solicitor and has threatened us with eviction before over an error the estate agent made. If we don't agree to her terms she'll do it again.

Any advice?
Many thanks

Play hard ball, send her a registered letter setting out your concerns and your refusal to go so quickly to her timetable. Phone the PRTB for advice - however they are meant to be useless as are most state bodies so maybe call Citizens Advice as well.

I'm not a legal expert so you may need legal input on whether she can up the rent as she proposes.

The fact she's a solicitor is irrelevant. She's going to get into hot water with the Revenue when the PRTB find out she hasn't registered. She may not have been registered for tax on the rent before you rented the property. That will interest the Revenue alright.

Cheeus said:

2. Landlady has never provided us with her PPS number to claim tax relief and it seems she is not registered with the PRTB.

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You can claim the private rented accommodation tax credit even if the landlord does not provide these details.

First off, talk to Threshold (www.threshold.ie).

As there is no lease in place your tenancy is considered a Part 4 tenancy under the PRTB rules, you cannot be given notice (with exceptions) until a 4 year period of tenancy elapses. In practice the exceptions can allow the landlord to bypass this seeming security but everything is still subject to PRTB review.

The landlord can only increase the rent once a year in line with market rents, if an extra €150 per month is more than you think reasonable for a similar property then there is a dispute process with the PRTB (which takes months btw - perhaps just starting this process would be sufficient to give you the breathing space you require?)

You can claim tax relief without the landlord's PPS number, just fill in as much detail as you can, the Revenue will no doubt be delighted to hear from you.

Thanks for the replies.

It's all been sorted out now. We said we'd move rather than agree to huge increase. We've negotiated a lower increase with a clause to break the lease at a months notice. We also now have PPS number.

It is worth doing your homework. Knowing rights from PRTB and Threshold really worked in our favour here.

Thank you!

For a solicitor she sure played that dumb!

Cheeus said:

We also now have PPS number.

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ClubMan said:

You can claim the private rented accommodation tax credit even if the landlord does not provide these details.

Click to expand...

Just to second what CM said, you do not need the landlords PPS number to claim rental tax relief.

It's requested on the form, but in a case where the landlord refuses to give it, Revenue will process it without this information.