Solving rental problems | Free legal advice

Questioner

As a landlady, I gave notice to a tenant to terminate his lease. After 9 months of renting plus three additional legal months, his rental contract ends at the end of August 2017. At the start of the rent, he paid 12 months in advance. He replaced my Ikea kitchen -in consultation- with a new Ikea kitchen just after moving in. As soon as he received my registered letter of termination, he removed the new kitchen and moved to another home. He does not want to say where this home is. There is no kitchen in the home anymore. I offered to refund him the rent already paid for the months he did not live there. He refused this because he said he would come back every now and then to sleep there. However, he never did. He still has a mattress and a refrigerator in the house. To further disadvantage me he also laid an electrical cable from my house to the neighbours (auto repair shop) to supply them with my electricity. I discovered this today after I peeked through a window and saw the cable and followed it to the neighbours. I know it's only 1 month left but would like to know what the legal situation is.

Lawyer

Yes, there are some things going wrong: you must be compensated for the value of the old kitchen. By installing a new kitchen, you could always be enriched and the tenant impoverished. This is then a skewed situation. So it depends on what the value of the old kitchen is, also whether the new one was mobile and therefore not permanently connected to the house. Sharing electricity with the neighbors without permission is really unlawful and this claim for damages can be high. Do you have an e-mail address of your tenant? Because what he has done is reason to terminate the lease immediately.

Questioner

The termination of the lease must be done by a judge, do I need a lawyer for this? Because the tenant no longer lives there, I can deny him access? I have the tenant's telephone number and I can also reach him via WhatsApp.

Lawyer

You do not need a lawyer and neither do you need one to recover the damages. It is important that you notify the tenant in time; an e-mail address or telephone number can sometimes provide an address. Otherwise, contact direct family. I can assist you in drawing up the liability claim.