We talk a lot here about the RTB being slow, or getting the paperwork wrong.
There's a deeper problem: the same question of law can produce opposite outcomes depending on which tribunal you draw.
A clean example. Both are published tribunal reports, both on sale-ground notices, and in both the statutory declaration was witnessed using the landlord's driver's licence as ID - rather than a passport or national ID card, the documents formally listed on the declaration form.
TR0525-008785 (Swords, Sept 2025): the tribunal held a driver's licence is not valid ID, that this made the declaration non-compliant, and - having considered the slip rule (s.64A) - expressly refused to apply it, finding the defect material. Notice invalid.
TR0001411 (Rathgar, May 2026): same defect. This tribunal held it a non-material, curable deviation under the Interpretation Act 2005, with no prejudice to the tenant. Notice valid.
Tribunal Report https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001411%20 (here).
Anyone can check: the acceptable ID documents are listed on the declaration form itself - passport, national ID card, and a few travel documents. A driver's licence isn't among them. One tribunal treated that as fatal; the other treated it as trivial.
Same point of law, same statutory materials, opposite results nine months apart. Neither turned on any special fact. In both, the landlord's genuine intention to sell was accepted - the only issue was the ID document. The second tribunal even acknowledged the first, and brushed it aside: it "is not bound by determinations made by differently constituted tribunals." To make matters more stark, at least one member sat on both panels.
As with all the issues with the RTB that we discuss, the cost isn't abstract. In the Swords case, the tenant was advised by Threshold and by Fingal County Council that the notice was invalid and not to move out (advice the tribunal in that case confirmed was correct). The tenant stayed, and arrears climbed to €15,500 before the tribunal even ruled- and note the rent was already deeply below market, so this was a landlord losing money he was owed on a property he was barely covering. Had that landlord drawn the Rathgar tribunal's reasoning instead, his notice would have been valid, he'd have had possession about a year sooner, and much of that €15,500 would never have accrued.
That's the real problem with tribunals not binding each other - a landlord's ability to recover their property, or a tenant's security in their home, turns not on the law but on the luck of the draw. There's no way for either side to know in advance which answer they'll get.
For a body being handed extra powers to fine and incarcerate landlords for getting the rules wrong, we should all be very worried.
There's a deeper problem: the same question of law can produce opposite outcomes depending on which tribunal you draw.
A clean example. Both are published tribunal reports, both on sale-ground notices, and in both the statutory declaration was witnessed using the landlord's driver's licence as ID - rather than a passport or national ID card, the documents formally listed on the declaration form.
TR0525-008785 (Swords, Sept 2025): the tribunal held a driver's licence is not valid ID, that this made the declaration non-compliant, and - having considered the slip rule (s.64A) - expressly refused to apply it, finding the defect material. Notice invalid.
The Tribunal is not satisfied that the failure to provide correct identifying documents is immaterial in circumstances where the list of acceptable identifying documents is set out clearly at the end on the statutory declaration sworn by the Landlord
Tribunal Report https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0525-008785 (here).TR0001411 (Rathgar, May 2026): same defect. This tribunal held it a non-material, curable deviation under the Interpretation Act 2005, with no prejudice to the tenant. Notice valid.
In the circumstances, the Tribunal is of the view that the use by the Landlord of his driving licence as an identity document does not affect the substance of the Statutory Declaration, nor was the Statutory Declaration misleading in content or effect.
Tribunal Report https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001411%20 (here).
Anyone can check: the acceptable ID documents are listed on the declaration form itself - passport, national ID card, and a few travel documents. A driver's licence isn't among them. One tribunal treated that as fatal; the other treated it as trivial.
Same point of law, same statutory materials, opposite results nine months apart. Neither turned on any special fact. In both, the landlord's genuine intention to sell was accepted - the only issue was the ID document. The second tribunal even acknowledged the first, and brushed it aside: it "is not bound by determinations made by differently constituted tribunals." To make matters more stark, at least one member sat on both panels.
As with all the issues with the RTB that we discuss, the cost isn't abstract. In the Swords case, the tenant was advised by Threshold and by Fingal County Council that the notice was invalid and not to move out (advice the tribunal in that case confirmed was correct). The tenant stayed, and arrears climbed to €15,500 before the tribunal even ruled- and note the rent was already deeply below market, so this was a landlord losing money he was owed on a property he was barely covering. Had that landlord drawn the Rathgar tribunal's reasoning instead, his notice would have been valid, he'd have had possession about a year sooner, and much of that €15,500 would never have accrued.
That's the real problem with tribunals not binding each other - a landlord's ability to recover their property, or a tenant's security in their home, turns not on the law but on the luck of the draw. There's no way for either side to know in advance which answer they'll get.
For a body being handed extra powers to fine and incarcerate landlords for getting the rules wrong, we should all be very worried.