# Advice re long term rental contract



## Caroline777 (Oct 3, 2012)

Hi. On 15/3/16 I signed a new 11 month rental contract on an unfurnished campo house. I paid 2 months deposit plus one month in advance. I've just seen on the FAQ's that legally, I only needed to pay one month deposit (but wasn't aware of this at the time of signing). For personal reasons I need to return to the UK for several months and therefore want to give notice here. Is there any way I will be able to ensure I only loose one month's deposit...or is it tough luck as I signed and paid without knowing where I stood legally? TIA.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

To some extent it will depend on the wording and terms of the contract. You might be interested to know, should you return to Spain, that 11 month contracts are no longer legal. They should be 6 months, 12 months or a longer period up to 4 years. There are still many landlords and agents who continue the practice of 11 month contracts in the belief that the laws of protections that tenants get once they have lived in a property for 12 months will not apply. Once an 11 month contract is over and you sign a new 11 month contract, after the first month you will have lived there for 12 months and the laws kick in regardless. Which is why the law was changed to a 12 month contract. In your particular case, check the wording and terms to see if it states whether or not you will lose the deposit if you 'break' the contract. You should also have a clause which dictates how many months notice you or the landlord have to give to legally break the contract. In my experience, however, it is sadly very often the case that even if the tenant has behaved perfectly and seen out the full term of their contract, they never see the deposit again. Which has caused some to not bother paying the last month or two month's rent which is also illegal. Good luck!!


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

thrax said:


> To some extent it will depend on the wording and terms of the contract. You might be interested to know, should you return to Spain, that 11 month contracts are no longer legal. They should be 6 months, 12 months or a longer period up to 4 years. There are still many landlords and agents who continue the practice of 11 month contracts in the belief that the laws of protections that tenants get once they have lived in a property for 12 months will not apply. Once an 11 month contract is over and you sign a new 11 month contract, after the first month you will have lived there for 12 months and the laws kick in regardless. Which is why the law was changed to a 12 month contract. In your particular case, check the wording and terms to see if it states whether or not you will lose the deposit if you 'break' the contract. You should also have a clause which dictates how many months notice you or the landlord have to give to legally break the contract. In my experience, however, it is sadly very often the case that even if the tenant has behaved perfectly and seen out the full term of their contract, they never see the deposit again. Which has caused some to not bother paying the last month or two month's rent which is also illegal. Good luck!!



Long-term rental contracts are now only renewable to a total of 3 years (used to be 5).

The law kicks in after 6 months now if the contract is NOT temporary.

There is really no such thing as a 12-month contract (per se). They are either long-term or temporary (holiday lets).


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

I went to a meeting which was run by a lawyer who specialises in tenancy & property law on Saturday, because I wanted to be clear about the 'minimum' term & also whether a contract which states 'temporary/temporal' would still be covered as a 'proper long term contract' under the LAU, if the property is actually the home of the tenant.

There is no legal minimum term. It can be whatever both parties agree to. Also, even if the contract states that it is a fixed term, temporary contract, under most circumstances it is treated as a 'proper' long term contract if it's the tenant's home. If it were to go to court, the tenant would usually win the case (obviously as long as rent etc is paid).

Pretty scary if you are an owner who thought that they had let a property for a short winter let & then discover that the tenants don't have to move out, unless you or a close family member needs to live there!

Once the initial term is up, it automatically rolls over to three years. No new contract, no additional fee/deposit etc. is required. If at the end of those three years the owner doesn't ask you to leave, you get another year (that bit surprised me).

Yes, all the law requires is one month deposit, but again, if two months was agreed by both parties then that is fine. 

Many contracts will have a cancellation clause now, so that if you leave before the contract so that a pro rata % of the deposit is withheld. This should be stated clearly in the contract.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

And that is one of the wonderful things about living in Spain. Our lawyer, in a similar meeting to Xabi, told the assembled throng that an initial 12 month contract may be extended by a further 3 years to a total of 4 years after which you are obliged to sort of start again. And, yes, a contract can be any length as long as both parties agree to it. The point he made is that 11 month contracts are based on the old laws and should no longer be used as they won't have the correct clauses.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

thrax said:


> And that is one of the wonderful things about living in Spain. Our lawyer, in a similar meeting to Xabi, told the assembled throng that an initial 12 month contract may be extended by a further 3 years to a total of 4 years after which you are obliged to sort of start again. And, yes, a contract can be any length as long as both parties agree to it. The point he made is that 11 month contracts are based on the old laws and should no longer be used as they won't have the correct clauses.


Those '11 month' contract give owners a false sense of security. They think that as long as the tenant has a contract with a finish date of less than a year from the start date, they can get their property back. That law changed years & years ago.

What the lawyer said was, it doesn't actually matter what the contract says in the end - it's whether or not the tenant is using the property as their home that matters. If they are, then they are protected under the LAU & can stay in the property with no need for new contracts.

Of course it's better to have proper residential contract which complies with the current laws - that way everyone knows where they stand.

There was an agent at the meeting who was horrified to be told that if she lets a property for a 2 or 3 month winter let, & the tenant decides to stay & decides that the property is their home, she'd have a tough time getting it back - & likely wouldn't be able to - before the 3 years is up


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## Allie-P (Feb 11, 2013)

In my area of Mijas, there are only 11 month contracts. You can tell agents/owners, until you are blue in the face, that they are illegal/out of date etc, etc......

They just shrug & say - either, sign or lose the accommodation....

Why is this happening ? I guess it is because they can always find some other foreign suckers, who are not aware of their rights & will go along with it !!

We lived in a house in La Cala for 2 years, with two 11 month contracts. The first one from Nov '13 to Oct '14. The second was dated from Jan '15 to Nov '15... Note that he didn't give us a consecutively dated contract !! 

We were perfect tenants who paid the rent etc. on the dot. Also, We knew that The Landlord was pocketing the money & not declaring the income for tax purposes !!!

He asked us to leave on Sept '15. He was planning to renovate the house & move there himself.

This was told to us verbally by himself & the original agents. It wasn't in the contract.

We were fed up with him arriving whenever it was convenient to him, in order to collect the rent in cash - so, we found somewhere else & moved !!

For other people in this position. What can they do ?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Allie-P said:


> In my area of Mijas, there are only 11 month contracts. You can tell agents/owners, until you are blue in the face, that they are illegal/out of date etc, etc......
> 
> They just shrug & say - either, sign or lose the accommodation....
> 
> ...


The bottom line really, is that if the property is your home, it almost doesn't matter what the contract says - you are covered by the LAU

Of course, most people will do as you did & move on rather than bother with the hassle - so owners will keep doing it again & again.


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## Turtles (Jan 9, 2011)

The above leaves me in a bit of an administrative mess as my landlord and I have not been keeping up with changing regulations and have been rolling forward our 11 month contracts. In spite of this we are both very happy with our relationship.
I'm not sure what kind of contract we should have. We'd like to stay in this house for at least another, and probably several more years.

When I bought a car recently I had to go to the town hall to get a Certificado de Empadronamiento. As is traditional in such encounters, they told me I would have to return the following day with additional paperwork. They wanted to see the current eleven month rental contract as the one they had on record had expired.
As it appears that they didn't know the rules either, what should I have said?


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Turtles said:


> The above leaves me in a bit of an administrative mess as my landlord and I have not been keeping up with changing regulations and have been rolling forward our 11 month contracts. In spite of this we are both very happy with our relationship.
> I'm not sure what kind of contract we should have. We'd like to stay in this house for at least another, and probably several more years.
> 
> When I bought a car recently I had to go to the town hall to get a Certificado de Empadronamiento. As is traditional in such encounters, they told me I would have to return the following day with additional paperwork. They wanted to see the current eleven month rental contract as the one they had on record had expired.
> As it appears that they didn't know the rules either, what should I have said?


I would suggest that you and the landlord use a "proper" contract next time (there's a template in the FAQ section of this forum).

This automatically rolls over for up to 3 years with no need for you or your landlord to do anything if you don't need to.

What I suspect the town hall wanted was to see an up-to-date contract. The fact it might by an 11-month one is irrelevant.


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## CharlieMCFC (Jan 27, 2016)

I wonder if you could advise me whether my landlord is acting legally (not that I'm going to do anything about it if he isn't...) I have a long term (12 month) contract. I specifically asked the estate agent what would happen if something went wrong (I used the example of the washing machine breaking) and was told that it would depend whether I broke it, or it died of old age. That all seemed fair enough. Then, 2 months after moving in, the central heating boiler broke. The landlord was very good and had it fixed promptly. Except that it wasn't fixed, the problem quickly re-occurred. The landlord then told me it was my problem, he would only attend to the first fault, anything that goes wrong from now on is my responsibility. That's a scary prospect, I could be in for some big repair bills for stuff that I haven't broken, it's just gone faulty. Is he right in saying that? I like this place and would like to stay, but renting seems pointless if I have to pay for the repairs too. FWIW, I somehow managed to get the plumber back with my pigeon Spanish, but (surprise surprise) he says there's nothing wrong with his repair, the gas supply has low pressure :-(


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