5 Ways To Ensure You Get Your Security Deposit Back
RENTING? You’re probably wondering if you’ll ever see that security deposit, usually one month’s rent, ever again. For many of you, this is your only ‘savings’, and you’ll certainly need it to use as a security deposit again should you move. So how can you be sure that your landlord will return it when you leave? Simply follow these helpful tips:
1) Maintain a degree of tidyness
Although landlords accept a degree of wear and tear around their premises, they will not accept damaged, such as holes in plasterboard, damaged furniture or avoidable cracks in sanitary-ware. To make sure your apartment or house doesn’t lapse into disrepair, simply keep it as tidy as you can, lessening the chances of tripping and damaging something. Simple!
2) Hermetically seal everything into a bubble
Cordon off one corner of the largest room in the building and tape heavy duty polythene sheeting over it, enclosing all the electrical appliances, seats, chairs and tables within. Draw all the air out of this with your hoover, creating a vacuum sealed corner that will perfectly preserve everything that the landlord left in the flat, so that they can’t argue that you broke the microwave and withhold your deposit when the time comes.
3) Live elsewhere
By all means, keep all your stuff in the house you’re renting… everything except yourself. You should live outside, in the shed if they have one. Just be careful not to cause any damage to the shed.
4) Agree to your landlords list of terms and conditions
Look, there’s a load of rules about what a landlord can and can’t do, certain rights you have as a tenant, restrictions on how much they can raise your rent, and so on. But at the end of the day, your landlord has the last €1,400 you have in this world, and he decides whether or not you get it back. So if he wants to kick you out at a fortnight’s notice so that he can bring someone in at a much higher rate of rent, what are you going to do about it? Sue him? Like, you could, and you’d be entitled to, but there goes your deposit. Your landlord knows this. You know this. You’re kind of in a tight spot here. So just nod along and do whatever you’re told without much fuss, otherwise we wish you the best of luck getting a new place with nothing except your Doctor Who boxset as a deposit.
5) Exploit a loophole in the system
We’re certain that there’s a few loopholes in the system that will protect you as a tenant and ensure that your landlord can’t fuck you over too badly when it comes to getting your deposit back. There must be, right? Christ knows there’s enough loopholes that allow these landlords to pretty much do whatever they want, so there must be at least one that works in the tenants favour, surely. We’ll let you know as soon as we find it.