beverley wrote:
Thank you for answering my questions.
He has nothing to worry about, he gives 3 months notice as that is how he pays his rent, deducts 1 months rent from his final payment ( no doubt he paid a month extra up front?) and leaves. The document has little meaning as it is not stamped or registered, his health is at risk from the state of the property and finally his landlord will not take him to court.From my experience, Cypriots don't take anything to court as it takes too long, costs money and their own linen is aired in public.
Good luck to your friend, hope he gets his life back to normal.
I think this is about the best advice your friend will get without paying for it.
Couple of additional mistakes to avoid.
Don't assume that being reasonable about your departure will engender reciprocal behaviour on the part of your landlord. You should be as unreasonable as your conscience will allow. Your landlord almost certainly will and, given that they have not being doing required maintenance and repair, their threshold is probably lower than yours
Supervise the termination of utilities yourself, and don't leave it to the landlord, you will be liable for the debts on your account until you do.
Things to file under interesting, but probably inconsequential
Under EU consumer/tenancy directives, any tenancy agreement longer than a year must be in writing and witnessed by at least two witnesses, so if your contract only has a single witness it is automatically invalid
What little Cypriot case law that exists in this area [as someone has remarked these things rarely get to court] suggests that, as a tenancy agreement gives the tenant the right to FULL beneficial use of a property, and failures of landlords to make repairs may restrict that full use, then failure to carry out repairs constitutes a previous breach, and therefore you cannot breach contract that is already breached
Good luck, and tell your friend not to worry about moving, his landlord has much less power than he would have him believe