A friend of mine who is renting a house has been asked to leave the house because the owner has died and the family wants to sell the house.
She has been told that she will have to wait until the house is sold before she gets her deposit back. What are her rights in this matter and will she have to wait until the house is sold, as she needs this money for a deposit on her next rental property?
Ghost, I am was/am in similar situation, Threshold can not help, PRTB will take 6months to a year to even look at your issue.
I am left with no deposit after 7 months of vacating a property that was put on the market, Landlord lives abroad and never sent to deposit to Irish Agent. ( we had to borrow from family to have money for our next security deposit ready for the next place we moved into )
So my advice would be to not delay a second, get most influential friends/relations/contacts together and put your case strongly that you must have your deposit back as security for your next rental contract. If they are adament not to do the right thing... Then all you can do is talk to a Solicitor who will tell you to go to PRTB first before they can take your case. It is 25 euro for the application for adjucation with the PRTB, you should make this application now and in about a month or so you will recieve a confirmaiton letter that your case is on file, you should then register post a copy of this letter to the landlord with your own cover letter stating that you have reported the landlord to the PRTB and that the findings will be made public under the owners name in due course. Keeping copies of all correspondance is very important, no NOT use email, keep everything by regsitered post. As you may need all the correspondance or proof that there was no responses at a later date
It is a mess, the ball is completely in the landlords court in this regard, you must just make it clear to them that they are better off to return the deopsit now rather than waiting who knows how long it'll take to sell the house!
One final thing, get a reference from them and a note to the effect that there are no outstanding issues in relaiton to the state of the property or the Utilities and that all is in order, this is important to show that they have no grounds to withhold the deposit.
Sorry for your troubles - I for one have found this type of situation very hard to deal with and Very annoying, especially when you do everything by the book and are a good tenant - there seems little protection for tenants in this regard, its something that will have to change.