Rental Deposit

I know this topic had been asked before, but I the posts I found didn't exactly address my specific issues, so please answer again if you have time to give constructive advice.


We're leaving HK in mid-August and we know our landlords are not going to give us back our full deposit (2 months' rent). We suspect they are in some financial difficulties. The management fees (which they pay) invoice comes into our mailbox each month and we see that they're always at least 3 months in arrears. Last month they were given a letter threatening legal action because they hadn't been paying management fees for 7 months! Anyway, that's not what this thread is about - just giving you a picture of our landlords from hell. BTW they live a few floors above us, so they're in the same building - more fool us!


Our rent is due on the 7th of each month. Remembering some of the things we read on this site a few months ago, we've decided the only way to protect ourselves is not to pay rent for the last 2 months because we'll be out of HK as soon as we hand back the keys, and don't have time to run around trying to make them give us our full deposit back. We have not paid rent for June and they've phoned us a couple of times and we've stalled for time by giving lame excuses such as internet banking (our usual method of transferring funds to them) is in a mess and we're waiting on that security device, etc. We finally rang up last night to tell them we're leaving in August, giving them 6 weeks' notice instead of the obligatory 1 month notice. They got angry about our not paying rent and insisted that we have to keep paying each month. We said no, and they finally told us to go right now. Our tenancy started as of 7th December 2003, and the contract was signed in November 2003.


Questions:

1. Can someone confirm that legally they cannot make us leave? Isn't it true that they can only take legal action if we hadn't been paying rent for 3 months in a row?

2. They only live a few floors above us. What can we do if they keep coming to hassle each day and night? Are they allowed to do that? We have 2 little kids at home all the time while both of us work full-time, and we worry about them hassling the kids, although I suspect that might be an over-reaction on my part.

3. How common is this situation (of not paying the last 2 months' rent) in HK? We've never done this before (not paying to the end) and are feeling a bit scummy for not doing the right thing, but we don't want to end up being screwed by these awful landlords.


Sorry this is so long. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

We have always used the 'dont pay rent for last 2 months' as our way of getting back our bond.

I think every landlord allows this, we have certainly never had a problem.

After youve left HK youre going to have a devil of a job getting it back.

Just write them a letter of what you intend to do and don't look back, it isn't scummy, as long as you havent wrecked their property you have nothing to be ashamed of.

Good Luck.

PS if theyre that strapped for cash that they need your rent to live and pay bills on, the odds are they arent going to refund your bond anyway....

Thank you all for writing. I know they will come and confront us about rent and just needed to know what they can and cannot do to us, particularly as they only live upstairs. We have not damaged anything in the flat, and will replace all the lightbulbs that are burnt out before we go. As far as we're concerned, we've only added value to the flat, eg. replaced 2 air-conditioners (they refused to do anything about that last year), fixed the toilet, added 8 power sockets (with their permission), added a new phone jack in the study, put in shelving in the kitchen (with their permission), the list goes on....... We did all those because they refused to fix the flat, always quoting "But the rent is so cheap!". That's why we don't trust them in returning our deposit back immediately. We are not around to keep chasing them up for it as we are leaving HK that same night.


I just needed confirmation that they can't throw us out and that they have no right to keep banging on our door every night. The doorbell doesn't work (and they refused to fix that too). If they do hassle us regularly, what recourse do we have?

My brother's tenant didn't pay rent for 6 months and disappeared later. My brother had to follow all the required procedures to get his property back. The law is to protect tenants, but people really abuse the law. It is a very common practice that people skip the last 2 months' rent. My brother and my mother always say OK. No problem with that at all.


As far as I understand, they have no right to bother you at all. They can't bang on the door every night. You can call the management and the police. I think they are the one who should be worried. You can do a lot of damages to the apartment and leave HK. Do you think there is anything they can do? Of course, I am not suggesting this. They should be worrying, not you. Sometimes, you got to be tough. Can't be too nice. I think you know your landlords better than us. I am sure that you won't fly to HK just for the deposit money.

Thanks, Rimu. Why couldn't we have rented a flat from your family????? ;-)

No, we will not purposely damage anything in the flat. We've got a house that we've rented out in Australia so we know what it's like from a landlord's perspective. It's just reassuring to know that we can call the police (management is useless) if they want to get nasty, and that we can stay on at the flat until we leave.

Thanks, skinny, we suspected that might be the case, because we know they'll be bringing in lots of potential tenants.


Oldhand, we have tried discussing maintenance with them, but they always fall back on "your rent is already too cheap, we will not fix anything, you took the flat as your saw it....." so we thought it'd be less hassle to just get things done ourselves. My husband is still pretty adamant that we'll remove both a/c's (even if we have to throw them in the tip) and leave a gaping big hole on the wall for them to patch up by themselves. Wonder what the weather's like when we leave??????