Landlord criticised for witholding deposits from 39 tenants

A landlord who was renting 24 apartments at a private student accommodation block to Brazilian students in Dublin has not returned deposits to nearly 40 tenants after he lost the contract for running the complex three months ago.

Spencer Accommodation, a small firm run by Basilio Carvalho (28), was renting 24 apartments to English language school students at Hazelwood Student Village, in Santry, north Dublin.

In February, his subletting agreement with Hazelwood Village was terminated. Correspondence sent to tenants from the accommodation’s management firm Impactive, stated: “Spencer’s contract stipulated that they must pay a monthly rent per apartments to Hazelwood. They defaulted on their payments.”

After this, the firm said “we were forced to serve them with a notice to quit”.

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Tenants were told in the email that Spencer Accommodation had refused to transfer students’ booking deposits to Impactive. In most cases tenants then signed licence to reside contracts directly with Impactive to last until May or later in the summer.

In late March, Mr Carvalho promised to return deposits to all former tenants, if given 28 day's notice, according to emails to tenants seen by The Irish Times.

However, two months later 39 tenants are still waiting to be repaid their deposits, Mr Carvalho acknowledged.

Activists

On Monday a group of tenants along with housing activists from Dublin Central Housing Action confronted Mr Carvalho in his office on Eustace St, Temple Bar, and refused to leave for several hours. On Tuesday, the activists and several other tenants protested outside his office building, demanding their deposits be returned.

Samantha Rodrigues Siqueira (24) moved into an apartment in Hazelwood last December, before the contract with Spencer Accommodation was terminated.

“We request our deposit in March, now it’s almost June and we just got it today,” she said. Ms Rodrigues Siqueira, who is from Brazil and studying English in Dublin, said she had tried to contact Mr Carvalho several times. “He always say maybe tomorrow, and that’s why people are so angry at him. It was difficult for everybody,” she said.

Ms Rodrigues Siqueira and her boyfriend Mauricio Alves Lucas (22) both had their €400 deposits returned on Tuesday, after they confronted Mr Carvalho at his office.

Problems

Sebastián Gutiérrez Ávalos was another Brazilian student renting one of the apartments, who returned home in March. He had "a lot of problems" getting his deposit back from Mr Carvalho, he told The Irish Times.

“I left Dublin (on) 25th March, and Basilio said to me that the same day I will receive my deposit, but it was false,” he said. Only after persistently contacting Mr Carvalho the money was given in cash to a friend in Dublin on May 3rd, he said.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Carvalho said there were 39 tenants to whom he still had to return deposits. "Everyone who left got the deposit back, I am completely confident," he said. Mr Carvalho, who moved to Dublin from Brazil nine years ago, said he would return the deposits to all tenants.

In a statement, Hazelwood Student Village said they had “no direct relationship with any students taking up occupation in units under the management of Spencer,” as the firm had been renting apartments and then subletting them.

“Despite repeated requests to Spencer, deposits paid by affected students have not been paid across to Hazelwood,” but the firm had been “willing” to try to help students recover their deposits, the statement said.

“Hazelwood is also due significant rents for the period November 2017 to February 2018, and has taken its own steps to recover this,” it added.