Residential Tenancies Board<\/a> tribunal heard the tenant, Aitana Martinez, had been told there were six people living at the property on Brabazon Street in The Liberties, Dublin, before she agreed to a tenancy last year.<\/p>\nHowever, after moving in, she discovered 12 people were living in the property with \u201conly two bathrooms\u201d, she said. She told the tribunal the property was \u201cfilthy\u201d, with \u201cmould everywhere\u201d, and she decided to leave.<\/p>\n
Daniel Oliveira, who had told her six people were living there and to whom she paid rent and the \u20ac650 deposit, said her vacating would be \u201cno problem\u201d and that he would return the deposit, Ms Martinez said. However, the deposit had not been returned by the time of the hearing in June, more than a year later.<\/p>\n
The tenant said she was a \u201cforeigner here with very little money\u201d and was \u201ctaken advantage of\u201d.<\/p>\n
The tribunal heard a claim by landlord Zinhua Luo that Mr Oliveira \u201cabsconded\u201d with the money. <\/p>\n
At the outset Mr Luo said he was not the landlord, but a director of Brilliant Estate Company Limited, which he said was the \u201cactual landlord\u201d. He said the company has two shareholders, both of whom are related to him.<\/p>\n
Mr Luo told the tribunal that Welcome Home Dublin Student Stays Limited was responsible for managing the dwelling and subletting rooms. He argued it was not his agent, but merely a \u201ccommercial partnership\u201d.<\/p>\n
He alleged Mr Oliveira of Welcome Home Dublin Student Stays \u201cabsconded with the rents and deposit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Luo argued he was not responsible for the loss of the tenant\u2019s money, saying: \u201cDaniel Oliveira is not my agent but is my co-partner.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, asked if he had received any rent in the past from Mr Oliveira, he said he had, though not since he \u201cabsconded\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Luo said he hoped the tribunal would not \u201cchoose one victim over another\u201d, saying he too was a victim, according to the tribunal report published last week.<\/p>\n
He argued that the condition of the dwelling was also the responsibility of Mr Oliveira\/Welcome Home Dublin Student Stays.<\/p>\n
Ms Martinez said Mr Luo came to the property after Mr Oliveira \u201cdisappeared\u201d, claiming he reassured them \u201call would be fine and that he would refund deposits, but then changed his mind\u201d.<\/p>\n
The tribunal found that Mr Luo was the landlord and is responsible for returning the deposit. It said Mr Oliveira was acting as an agent for him.<\/p>\n
It ordered Mr Luo to return the deposit of \u20ac650 to Ms Martinez within 28 days and awarded her \u20ac350 in damages for its unlawful retention for more than a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Spanish tenant who discovered 12 people living in a \u201cfilthy\u201d property in Dublin city that she had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,52,18,8752,19,17,41275],"class_list":{"0":"post-135954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dublin","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-housing-crisis","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-residential-tenancies-board-prtb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}