Search Q&A
Leaving lease early - deposit & lease registration
Hello
We are planning to leave our apartment 18 months into the three year lease.
However, when we emailed the landlord at the beginning about arranging our deposit, she never replied to us (and we have that email proof) and therefore we didn't chase her and never paid a deposit.
Now we are leaving the country and would like to know
1 - if we give notice can she demand our deposit if she realises?
2 - how can you see if a property has been registered as we don't think she has done this either as in previous apartments we also received a copy of the registered lease
3 - if we leave without giving notice what can she do legally?
TIA
J will be along shortly to answer your questions.
I believe you are required to give notice of cancelling your lease by registered mail. Perhaps the landlord has ignored your email as it is not a legal method of informing her and therefore you haven’t really given official notice yet.
The address to register a lease is
Bureau de l’Enregistrement et Baux de Résidence Principale
Rue de la Régence 54
1000
Bruxelles
I’m sure they can tell you if the lease is registered.
If it is not registered I believe it (the lease) has no validity. Getting your deposit back however will be another question. Normally if you cancel before the second year of the lease is up you would have to pay a two month penalty. However if you have not given legal notification, i.e. via registered mail, you may still be responsible for the rent.
There is absolutely no legal requirement for notice to be given by registered mail unless it is specified in your contract.
Registered mail is simply one of a range of options and it gives you proof, if you need it, that you have given notice. The most reliable way is to prepare two copies of your notice and get the landlord to sign and date one as proof of receipt of the other.
When we left our last place we saw the owner in the street and told him that we were leaving in 3 months time. By the time we came back home there was a notice up announcing that the apartment was available from the appropriate date. That was it - done and dusted.
First of all, read your lease very carefully and see what it says about your rights to break the lease early. By default, leases of three years or less (so called short-term leases) are binding to both the landlord and the tenant during the entire duration of the lease, and cannot be broken for ANY reason by either party. Now, some landlords do add clauses to short-term leases, giving the tenant the right to break the lease early by paying a set penalty.
If your lease has such a clause, give notice accordingly, and be prepared to pay the required penalty.
If your lease has no such clause, things get a lot trickier. As the lease cannot be broken early, in principle you are responsible for paying the rent for the remaining 18 months, whether you live at the property or not.
As this is a short-term lease, whether it is registered or not makes no difference to its legal value. It is binding for both parties in any case. IF it was a nine-year lease, and it was not registered, this would give you the right to leave at any time without giving any notice period or paying any penalties. But this only applies to nine-year leases, not to three-year ones.
If you are liable to pay the rent for the entire duration of the lease, try your best to negotiate with a landlord to reach an amicable settlement. She will for sure require some sort of penalty payment for this.
"If we leave without giving notice what can she do legally?"
She can take you to court and demand the rent for the remaining 18 months. No judge is going to grant her that, but she may get 6-7 months. After she has the court judgement against you, it pretty much depends on where you are going (you say you are leaving the country). If you are moving to an EU country, pursuing you for the debt would most likely be worth her while. if not, she may just abandon the idea and count her losses.
As our 9 year lease was automatically renewed, should it have been re-registered? Does it count as a new lease?
@RED - No, it's the same lease still. No need to re-register. It has been renewed for three years, and if at the end of the three years the landlord does not give you notice (a minimum of six months before the lease is scheduled to end), it will be renewed again for further three years, and so on. You of course can give notice at any time, not just at the end of each three-year period.
Ok thanks - so we still have 3 months notice to give, unless it wasn't registered in the first place then.
Yep, notice of three full calendar months. Unless, as you say, it was never registered in the first place.
@CHM - Why should I bother? RPPKN already has.
