Debrecen
Antall József str. 36., gf. 1.
+36 20 445 8480
On weekdays 8 AM to 5 PM
Open: 8 AM to 5 PM
On weekends we are closed
Antall József str. 36., gf. 1.
On weekdays 8 AM to 5 PM
On weekends we are closed
Under a lease contract the landlord is obliged to grant the temporary use of a specified thing, and the tenant to take it over and pay rent. For the letting of a dwelling to be valid, the contract must be put in writing: an oral residential tenancy agreement is not valid, and termination for non-payment of rent also follows a strict statutory procedure. Dr. Andirkó Law Firm is led by dr. Andirkó Balázs István LL.M., attorney-at-law, compliance and real estate law specialist. We draft and review residential and commercial lease contracts for landlords, tenants, property management companies and portfolio owners, with in-person consultations in Debrecen and Hajdúböszörmény and online, by video call, throughout the country.
The following six questions are the ones landlords bring to us most often. The order follows the course of a tenancy: from when the rent falls due, through handling non-payment and maintenance obligations, to the end of the tenancy and the vacating of the premises.
The due date of the rent is one of the points least often spelled out in a lease contract, yet it frequently becomes disputed. The tenant must pay the rent to the landlord in the amount and at the time set out in the contract. If the parties have not agreed on the time of payment, the tenant must pay the rent monthly in advance, in one sum, by the 15th day of the month at the latest.
This matters because the system of deadlines for termination due to non-payment is tied to that date: the “missed due date” is the date determined by the contract or, in its absence, by the law. If the contract says nothing about this, the landlord cannot rely on default before the 15th day of the month.
For non-residential premises the general lease rules of the Civil Code apply: the tenant must pay the rent monthly in advance, and where the contract is concluded for less than a month, the rent falls due when the contract is concluded.
For this case the law prescribes a two-stage procedure and short deadlines. In practice a termination usually fails not because the landlord is in the wrong, but because the procedure was not followed.
If the tenant does not pay the rent by the time set for payment, the landlord must call on the tenant in writing to perform – with a warning as to the consequences. If the tenant does not comply with that notice within eight days, the landlord may terminate the contract in writing within a further eight days.
Three mistakes occur most frequently:
Termination for non-payment may be given for the last day of the month following the missed due date, and the notice period may not be shorter than fifteen days.
Where the ground for termination is the conduct of the tenant or of the persons living with them, the procedure is similarly strict. The landlord must call on the tenant in writing – with a warning as to the consequences – to stop the conduct or to refrain from repeating it, within eight days of becoming aware of it; and the termination must be served in writing within eight days of the conduct continuing or being repeated.
There is an important difference between the two cases: here the second eight-day deadline runs not from the notice becoming unsuccessful, but from the conduct continuing or being repeated.
Termination is therefore not a question of judgement but of deadlines. If you wish to end a tenancy, it is advisable to turn to an attorney already when the notice is being drafted: at that stage the procedure can still be shaped, whereas by the time the termination is served the deadlines have usually already been decided.
The landlord has a lien by operation of law. It is worth knowing its content and its limits precisely, because in practice it is a source of misunderstanding in both directions.
The landlord of a property has a lien, up to the amount of the rent and the costs, over the tenant’s assets located on the leased premises. The lien is based on the law and requires no separate stipulation. Three further rules go with it.
For as long as the lien exists, the landlord may prevent the removal of the assets encumbered by it. This is therefore not self-help but a right guaranteed by law; its limits, however, are set by the law itself.
If the tenant objects to the existence or the extent of the lien, or to the landlord having prevented the removal of assets beyond those providing full cover for the claim, the landlord must enforce the lien through the courts within eight days. If the landlord fails to do so, the lien ceases. This eight-day deadline is often overlooked in practice.
If the tenant removes an item encumbered by the lien without the landlord’s consent and does not provide other adequate security, the landlord may demand that the item be brought back at the tenant’s expense; on its return the lien revives.
The lien does not, however, entitle the landlord to lock the tenant out of the property, change the locks or sell the tenant’s belongings by way of self-help. The right of satisfaction may be exercised through judicial enforcement or – with statutory restrictions as against consumers – outside judicial enforcement, and in the course of any sale the holder is bound by the requirement of commercial reasonableness and by a duty to account. Locking the tenant out and selling items arbitrarily establish the landlord’s liability.
The landlord must take care of the maintenance of the building, the constant operability of the building’s central equipment, and the remedying of defects arising in the condition and fittings of the premises in common use.
A different rule applies to the internal maintenance of the leased premises. The costs of maintaining, renovating, replacing and exchanging the flat’s surfaces, doors, windows and fittings are governed by the agreement of the landlord and the tenant; in the absence of an agreement, the costs of maintenance and renovation fall on the tenant, and the costs of replacement and exchange on the landlord.
The basis of the split is therefore not the size of the cost but the nature of the work carried out. A costly repainting counts as maintenance and so falls on the tenant; a cheap tap replacement counts as an exchange and so falls on the landlord.
This is one of the questions where a contract drafted in advance pays off most. Without an agreement the statutory split applies, which does not necessarily suit either party’s interests. It is therefore worth setting out in the contract, item by item, which works count as maintenance and which as replacement, and where the value threshold between the parties lies.
When the contract ends, the tenant must return the flat and its fittings to the landlord in a condition fit for use for their intended purpose. What that means in practice can usually be judged against the itemised, photographic handover record drawn up on moving in; in disputes about the deposit it is generally this document that is decisive.
After a fixed-term contract expires, a faster, non-contentious route is available to the landlord – but it has a preclusive deadline.
In the case of a fixed-term lease of a dwelling or of other non-residential premises, the landlord may, within 60 days of the expiry of the specified term, request the application of the non-contentious procedural rules on vacating the premises, provided that on submitting the request they prove that the term specified in the lease contract has elapsed. The deadline for submitting the request is preclusive.
In the two months following expiry, vacating can therefore be ordered by court order without litigation. Once the sixty days have passed this is no longer possible: what remains is an action for the vacating of the flat, which means a considerably longer procedure.
The date of expiry is therefore not merely a record-keeping detail but a deadline. We advise clients managing several properties to keep their contracts, together with the expiry dates, in a single register.
A notarial deed containing an undertaking to vacate strengthens the landlord’s position considerably, and it pays off increasingly as the number of let properties grows.
If the tenant undertakes before a notary, in a public deed, to vacate and leave the property when the tenancy ends, the deed can be furnished with an enforcement clause and so becomes enforceable without litigation. The notary who drew up the deed furnishes it with an enforcement clause if it contains the undertaking – whether for consideration or unilateral – the names of the entitled party and the obligor, the subject matter, quantity (amount) and legal title of the obligation, and the manner and deadline of performance. Where the obligation depends on a condition or a date occurring, enforceability also requires that the occurrence of that condition or date be certified by a public document. In a tenancy it is typically this last point that is critical, because the ending of the tenancy also has to be proved.
One further rule has to be taken into account regarding the timing of enforcement. The bailiff postpones carrying out the vacating of residential property to the period after 15 November to 30 April, if the obligor is a private individual. In a matter decided in November this means that the actual eviction takes place in May. As a landlord it is therefore advisable to start settling the tenancy in the autumn months. There are two exceptions to the postponement: the vacating of an unlawfully occupied dwelling, and the case where a disciplinary fine has previously been imposed on the obligor.
Unlawful occupation is in any event a separate category: the court orders the vacating of an unlawfully occupied dwelling by an order made in non-contentious proceedings, without issuing an enforceable document. Our firm drafts the lease contract so that it fits the notarial deed, and compiles the documents needed for the notarial procedure.
Tenants typically turn to us once a dispute has already arisen. Having the contract reviewed before signing takes comparatively little effort, and it prevents a significant share of the disputes that arise later. The following seven points are worth checking in every lease contract.
Where several properties are let, the question is usually not whether an individual contract is adequate, but whether the contractual system is consistent. We have built a separate service for this need, consisting of three steps that build on one another: a portfolio review, the creation of a template system, and ongoing legal support for a flat fee.
Where a contract portfolio already exists, the first step is not rewriting but assessment. We go through the contracts and set out the state of the portfolio in a table: which contracts fall into a risk category, where the written form required for validity is missing, where the termination mechanism does not work, where the accounting for the deposit is incomplete, where no handover record was made, and where there is a clause that would probably not stand up in court proceedings. We also record the expiry dates, because for fixed-term contracts the sixty days following expiry is a preclusive deadline.
The review is fixed-fee, predictable work, and it gives you an accurate picture of the risks attached to your contract portfolio.
After the review we build a template system: a base contract for dwellings and for business premises, a handover record, notice and termination templates containing the statutory deadlines, a deposit accounting template, and a version of the contract that fits a notarial deed containing an undertaking to vacate.
We put the template system together so that your staff can use it on their own: every template comes with a short, plain-language completion guide that also indicates the cases in which an attorney needs to be involved.
In the third stage we are available for a monthly flat fee. This covers the review of individual contracts, checking terminations and formal notices, arrears management and legal advice. It usually means a more favourable fee and faster handling than instructing us case by case, because the portfolio does not have to be learned afresh each time.
If it comes to enforcing a tenant’s debt, the same firm carries it on within debt recovery, from the payment notice through to enforcement.
Request a quote for your portfolio. At the first consultation we review how many contracts there are and of what type, and which questions need to be settled first.
Real estate law specialist. Dr. Andirkó Balázs István LL.M. obtained his real estate law specialist qualification at the University of Debrecen and also holds an LL.M. as a compliance law specialist. The firm has been operating since 2020 and is a member of the Debrecen Bar Association.
Clear communication. We do not expect our clients to be familiar with legal terminology. We do consider it important that they understand throughout what is happening in their matter and why, so we keep the use of jargon to what is necessary.
Experience in debt recovery. A significant part of the disputes arising in a tenancy turns into a monetary claim. Debt recovery is a standalone practice area of the firm, so we draft the contract from the outset in such a way that a claim arising from it can be enforced if necessary.
Online consultation. If time or distance makes a personal meeting impossible, the consultation can also take place via Teams, Zoom, Google Meet or FaceTime.
Our other practice areas: real estate law and construction, condominium lawyer, construction contract, corporate law.
No. For the letting of a dwelling to be valid, the contract must be put in writing. Without a written contract, neither the rent, nor termination, nor the deposit can be settled reliably.
The tenant must pay the rent in the amount and at the time set out in the contract. If the parties have not agreed on the time of payment, the tenant must pay the rent monthly in advance, in one sum, by the 15th day of the month at the latest. For non-residential premises the general rule of the Civil Code applies: the rent is due monthly in advance, and for a lease of less than a month, when the contract is concluded.
First you have to call on the tenant in writing to perform, with a warning as to the consequences. If the tenant does not comply with that notice within eight days, the landlord may terminate the contract in writing within a further eight days. Missing the second eight-day deadline puts the success of the termination at risk.
For the last day of the month following the missed due date, with the proviso that the notice period may not be shorter than fifteen days.
The landlord must call on the tenant in writing – with a warning as to the consequences – to stop the conduct or to refrain from repeating it, within eight days of becoming aware of it. The termination must be served in writing within eight days of the conduct continuing or being repeated.
This eight days therefore runs not from the expiry of the notice, but from the conduct continuing or being repeated.
The landlord of a property has a lien, up to the amount of the rent and the costs, over the tenant’s assets located on the leased premises. For as long as the lien exists, the landlord may prevent those assets from being removed. If the tenant objects to this, the landlord must enforce the lien through the courts within eight days, otherwise it ceases. Locking the tenant out or selling their belongings by way of self-help, on the other hand, establishes the landlord’s liability.
If the tenant removes an item encumbered by the lien without the landlord’s consent and does not provide other adequate security, the landlord may demand that the item be brought back at the tenant’s expense. On its return the lien revives.
Maintenance of the building, the operability of the central equipment and the remedying of defects in the premises in common use are the landlord’s obligation. As regards the maintenance, renovation, replacement and exchange of the flat’s surfaces, doors, windows and fittings, the agreement of the parties governs; in the absence of an agreement, the cost of maintenance and renovation falls on the tenant, and the cost of replacement and exchange on the landlord.
The law therefore divides costs by the nature of the work, not by its size.
When the contract ends, the tenant must return the flat and its fittings to the landlord in a condition fit for use for their intended purpose. What that means in practice can usually be judged against the itemised, photographic handover record drawn up on moving in.
In the case of a fixed-term lease of a dwelling or of non-residential premises, the landlord may, within 60 days of the expiry of the specified term, request the application of the non-contentious procedural rules on vacating the premises, provided that they prove at the same time that the term specified in the contract has elapsed. This deadline is preclusive: once the sixty days have passed, only an action for the vacating of the flat remains.
A public document in which the tenant undertakes to vacate the property when the tenancy ends. The notary who drew up the deed furnishes it with an enforcement clause if it contains the undertaking, the names of the entitled party and the obligor, the subject matter, quantity and legal title of the obligation, and the manner and deadline of performance. In this way the vacating is enforceable without litigation.
The bailiff postpones carrying out the vacating of residential property to the period after 15 November to 30 April, if the obligor is a private individual. There are two exceptions: the vacating of an unlawfully occupied dwelling, and the case where a disciplinary fine has previously been imposed on the obligor. As a landlord it is therefore worth starting to settle the tenancy in good time, in the autumn.
The rules on residential tenancy apply, with the differences set out in the Act, to the creation of a lease of non-residential premises, to the rights and obligations of the parties and to the ending of the lease. In practice, however, commercial leases are considerably more complex: longer terms, indexation, tenant investment, business transfers and landlord consents all come into play.
Yes. Where there are several let properties, standardising the contract portfolio is the intervention that reduces risk most broadly. We start with a portfolio review, then build a template system, and finally provide ongoing legal support for a monthly flat fee.
When you contact us we examine the legal status of the property and explain how the contract will be concluded, the attorney's fee and the expected costs. If you go on to instruct us, the fee for the first consultation is credited against later fees.
We draft the appropriate type of contract and provide the lawyer's countersignature.
We provide representation before the land registry authority, the tax authority and – depending on the type of case – any other authority or body.