Rent disputes

Most disputes over a lease start with a payment that does not arrive, or one that is held back on purpose. A tenant stops paying because the heating failed all winter; a landlord keeps the deposit because the premises came back in worse condition than they were handed over. Each side is usually convinced it is in the right, and the lease itself rarely answers the question that has actually arisen. Left alone, the sums grow, positions harden, and a problem that one letter could have settled ends up before a judge.

A rent dispute is decided on evidence as much as on the lease: what was reported, when, and in what form. Whether you are the landlord or the tenant, the outcome turns on:

• the rules on recovering unpaid rent, together with interest and the costs of collection;
• the rules on reducing or withholding rent when the premises cannot be used as agreed, and on the risk of doing so on your own initiative;
• the rules on the record of condition at entry and departure, and on proving who caused the damage;
• the rules on returning the rent deposit, and on the deductions a landlord may make from it;
• the rules on occupation after the lease has ended, and on the compensation owed for staying on;
• the rules on eviction, from the judgment to its enforcement, and on what a landlord may not do without one;
• the rules on a tenant’s insolvency, and on what becomes of the lease and the arrears when the business fails;
• the rules on conciliation, mediation and the court or chamber that hears tenancy cases.

Our lawyers can support you with this.