Michael had been living in his rented home for nearly three years. However, the home was not without its issues.
“I moved in to be close to my son. I was willing to forgive the state of the house,” he said when chatting about his experiences. On the surface, the house seemed comfortable. Whenever guests came over, they complimented his home. But there were several underlying issues with the property.
“It was impossible to heat the house,” Michael said. It started with drafts. In addition to the drafts, there were poor window seals and the boiler was broken. The home was cold. So cold that during the gas and electricity cost spike of winter 2022, he spent over €3,500 just to heat it. “That was in addition to putting rugs around the doors and draft blockers around the doors. The property management company advised me to hang heavy blankets around the house in efforts to reduce drafts.”
“The onus is on the landlord and property management company to maintain the property. Whenever I asked them to fix an issue, they never did. But after I moved out, they fixed these things from my deposit,” Michael said.
Michael received a Notice of Termination and was given six months’ notice. His landlord wanted to sell. “It seemed a little heartless,” Michael said, noting that they had just raised the rent three months before, even though they knew they would be selling soon.
After a lot of effort searching online, Michael was able to find a new home and still had three months to spare on the Notice. Tenants can move at any point after they have received a Notice of Termination, so he jumped at the chance to establish a new home, fearing he would face homelessness if he didn’t.
But then he hit another obstacle after he moved into his new home: “Six to seven weeks and I still hadn’t received my deposit. It was only after attempting to get in contact with my letting agent for four weeks that I learned they retained €1,200 of the €1,800 to fix the long-standing issues in the home to make it ready to sell. Issues I had repeatedly asked to be addressed during my tenure. Nonetheless, all issues aside, I had left the house in a better condition than I had received it.”
This is when Michael got in contact with Threshold to understand his rights in this situation. Peter, his Threshold advisor, was able to inform him of his rights and walk him through the best course of action in discussions with the letting agent and landlord.
With the support of Threshold, Michael objected to the amount of his deposit being retained and worked to get it back: “It was nearly 10 days of constant work. I should have been using that time on my actual job. It was an unnecessary stress in an already stressful time. It wasn’t until a threat of RTB action that I got some money back.”
After fighting for several days, Michael weighed up the amount of deposit still not returned and the cost of his time it took to get a portion of the deposit back. He decided to accept that he wouldn’t receive his full deposit back, not wanting to spend more time in a dispute with his landlord.
Reflecting on the situation, Michael felt the deposit was symptomatic of the power imbalance in the landlord and tenant relationship: “The onus is on the tenant to hold up their end of the agreement; little is on the landlord. The tenant will ignore a lot because they have a rough time finding another place hanging over their heads. Many landlords and letting agents are well aware of this.
“I could understand that if you’re buying something, you should pay a deposit as an act of good faith. But a deposit in a leasing situation is different depending on who has control of it. A situation where neither party has access to it during the tenancy seems quite fair.”
