Couple who left rented home due to cost of rent and childcare ordered to pay €3,400 for not giving proper notice
A couple who sought to terminate their tenancy after finding it “impossible” to pay high rents alongside new childcare costs have been ordered to pay more than €3,400 after failing to provide proper notice.Patrick McHugh told a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal that he and his partner, Genevieve Gleeson, had been renting the property in Lucan, Co Dublin, since 2022.By the time they vacated the property almost three years later, the couple had paid €58,000 in rent to their landlord, Feargal Condron, he said.Mr McHugh said that after the birth of their child, they found it “impossible” to pay the monthly rent of €1,900 alongside new childcare costs.READ MORERenters forking out €2,000 per month are paying the price for water charges debacleHitting target of 41,000 homes to be built this year will be ‘challenging’, Minister for Housing admitsHoliday homeowners underestimate at their peril the anger among those locked out of the housing marketWater utility warns on reforms needed for housing targets: ‘The scale of the task is immense’He added that the property had become too small for their needs and he sought a rent reduction, but this was declined.The couple subsequently informed a managing agent by text in December 2024 that they intended to vacate the property by the end of February. After receiving no response, they contacted the agent again in January but again received no reply, he said.However, Mr Condron told the tribunal no formal notice was given by the couple, and the agent messaged by Mr McHugh had left the management agency a year before.During cross-examination of Mr McHugh by his former landlord, the tenant said he was unaware of the agent’s departure but was aware that a second agent was working in the office.Mr Condron told the tribunal that rent arrears of €1,900 for the month of February also remained unpaid by the couple, for which he retained their security deposit.He argued he was entitled to a further €3,423 in rent for the required notice period of 56 days, which Mr McHugh described as “gouging and deeply unfair”.The tenant said he expected the couple’s deposit to cover February’s rent, and accepted that they had not given notice in the proper format, but said they were “disappointed at the way the situation had evolved”.Mr McHugh said he had been communicating by text and thought all was “in order”, adding that after leaving the property at the end of February, they had dropped the keys into the agent’s office.The tribunal said the couple were required to give 56 days’ notice at the time, being a tenancy of between two and four years in duration.However, the couple failed to give proper notice of their intention to terminate the tenancy, the tribunal said, and deemed them to be liable for a further €3,435.85 in rent for the notice period.It said the “personal circumstances” of Mr McHugh and Ms Gleeson “cannot be considered by the tribunal in arriving at its decision” and ordered them to pay the sum in six instalments of €572.63 per month.It added that Mr Condron was entitled to retain the couple’s security deposit of €1,900 due to non-payment of one month’s rent.
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