Buying a rented property - how do I know what the historic rent was?

p111111x

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I'm considering buying a property currently it has no tenants, it was rented in the past but was never on the RTB according to the vendor.
When I rang the RTB they couldn't tell me if the property had been registered in the past, they told me they could only give me this info if I was the property owner.
Is there anyway to find this information out?
 
Does this online register show past tenancies or just current?
I rang them but they couldn't tell me if there where past rentals of the property
 
cheers for the replies all.
but it doesn't answer my question, how can I find out if the property has been rented in the past?
 
I did check online it showed nothing but I was sure if past tenancies would show up, so I rang and asked but they wouldn't tell me.
They said they could only tell me if I was the property owner!
 
Assume you go sale agreed. Before contracts are exchanged insist on a letter from vendor's solicitor stating that no rental contract in place at property for previous two years.

I think you're pretty safe to set any rent at market rates after that
 
Assume you go sale agreed. Before contracts are exchanged insist on a letter from vendor's solicitor stating that no rental contract in place at property for previous two years.

I think you're pretty safe to set any rent at market rates after that
That seems like the way to go. When you think about it, it's surprising that the legal-financial industry isn't already insisting on it as a standard part of the conveyancing process.
 
When you think about it, it's surprising that the legal-financial industry isn't already insisting on it as a standard part of the conveyancing process.
They are. The questions around residential tenancies are a standard part of the requisitions on title.
See section 10: https://www.lawsociety.ie/globalass...recedents/2019/2019-requisitions-on-title.pdf


They said they could only tell me if I was the property owner!
Yep, property owner phones them, to request confirmation he's committed a criminal offence.

You run the remote risk of a disgruntled former tenant providing evidence of rent amount to your new tenant.
 
Although I don't remember being specifically asked about that by my solicitor when selling my PPR a few years ago.
Ah, it may have only been introduced in the 2019 version. I don't buy too many houses, so I'm not overly familiar with what got added when.
 
You run the remote risk of a disgruntled former tenant providing evidence of rent amount to your new tenant.
And the new tenant would need to have the ability and willingness to act on it.

It's a non-zero risk but there are much more obvious things that can go wrong with a buy to let.
 
what I'm trying to guard against is buying a property then registering it with the RTB only for them to tell me it was registered two years ago at a much lower price
 
what I'm trying to guard against is buying a property then registering it with the RTB only for them to tell me it was registered two years ago at a much lower price
I believe that as long as the property hasn't been the subject of a registered tenancy in the last two years (and your Solicitor will get that undertaking); then you can set the rent at market rates.
 
what I'm trying to guard against is buying a property then registering it with the RTB only for them to tell me it was registered two years ago at a much lower price

Otherwise (and I have no inside knowledge) I suspect the RTB database isn't great. People don't consistently use eircodes or address fields at all so address matching is hazardous. The RTB historically only knows when a tenancy began, not when it ended. Their own website suggests that there is no legal obligation yet on landlords to annually update the register of tenancies.

So for them to take action there would need to be a precise address match for a tenancy that was first registered within the last 24 months.


It is highly unlikely, but if tenants and RTB force you to reduce rent to below-market rates you could take a civil action against the vendor failing to disclose the existence of a prior tenancy.
 
The RTB are useless. A house i know was rented out for way under market rent. It was sold last year and immediately went back on the rental market. The rent was increased by 50% exactly on the old rent. There was no renovations whatsoever carried out.

It got me thinking, the only people who knew the old rent, were the previous owners (who don't care what happens to the house now in fairness), the previous tenants (who don't care either as they have moved elsewhere), the estate agent (again, doesn't care and has gotten her commission) and finally the new owners (who do care obviously, but only in terms of maximising the rent).

The house is tenanted for the last number of the months at the higher rent. How come the RTB doesn't do something on this. The address cannot differ that much, it's as simple a spelling for an address as could be.
 
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