Many tenants believe that leaving the flat and leaving the keys inside is sufficient to terminate a rental contract. However, a recent ruling by the Provincial Court of Huesca reminds us that this practice can be costly.
The court has upheld the sentence against a tenant to pay 2,758 euros in unpaid rent, considering that she never formally returned the property to its owner. The key issue is not whether or not the tenant continued to reside in the property, but rather an essential legal element: the lack of proof of effective restitution of possession of the property to the owner.
When is a rental contract considered to have ended?
A rental contract does not automatically terminate when the tenant leaves. For the rental to end with full legal effect, the landlord must effectively recover possession of the property, which requires a material and verifiable return of the property with the owner’s knowledge, which does not occur simply by abandoning the property.
In the case analysed, the landlord filed a lawsuit claiming seven months’ rent (from September 2023 to March 2024) as she had not received either formal notice of the termination of the contract or the keys to the property.
The tenant claimed that she had left the flat at the end of September and left the keys inside after giving notice of her departure, but she was unable to prove that she had handed over the keys.
