Micheál Martin: Rent-a-Room scheme "something we should consider expanding"

[LarryScott]

Increasing rights for licencees might end up worsening the accommodation crisis, similarly to the way that regulations that outlawed bedsits did, as some RaR hosts might simply stop hosting altogether.

Any increase in rent-a-room tenant rights would be a massive warning sign to me. Though I am probably past the threshold anyway.

At one point, I considered renting out a room in my home, but ultimately decided again it. I am not confident that rent-a-room protections for landlords will be maintained.

The whole point of the scheme is the safety for the landlord if anything goes wrong.

All this does show the government's completely differing views of two essentially similar structures.

The logic is that a non-paying/nightmare tenant in a house away from where you live is stressful. The same tenant in your own home would be much much worse.

No amount of guilt-tripping from the government will allow them to convince someone to risk a bad tenant, that they can't evict, in their own home.

 

[TomEdison]

What LarryScott said, exactly.

It has always been the case that having someone live with you in your home has been treated, from a legal and regulatory point of view, as a radically different situation from being the owner of a property in which you yourself do not live, which you exploit commercially by leasing it out. You don't have to think too hard to see why that might be the case.

Arguments that the two regulatory regimes should be co-ordinated will get exactly zero traction.

 

[lff12]

The logic is that a non-paying/nightmare tenant in a house away from where you live is stressful. The same tenant in your own home would be much much worse.

It depends. My grandmother had lodgers back in the day and they were very carefully picked and became long term family friends. In fact I ended up renting an apartment for years from the widow of their first lodger.
Obviously times are different now and its far harder to judge character, but actually it makes a lot of sense for older people to have a younger working person in the house. Sadly, it didn't quite work out for my grandmother's last lodger as he was so shy and retiring he didn't spot there was something wrong when she wasn't up before him the morning she passed away and didn't alert anybody.

 

[Greenbook]

No amount of guilt-tripping from the government will allow them to convince someone to risk a bad tenant, that they can't evict, in their own home.

Agree entirely with that, an anti-social tenant in your own house who you couldn't get rid of would be an absolute nightmare. Few home owners would take that risk. Likewise a tenant who moves in and doesn't pay.

Renting to an anti-social or non paying tenant in the PRS is a nightmare as well. They can stay for years, the whole system is geared towards that.

The disparity is not that tenants have so few rights in the RaR sector, you can see why, it is by way of comparison landlords' complete inability to deal with problem tenants in the PRS.

 

[Greenbook]

Arguments that the two regulatory regimes should be co-ordinated will get exactly zero traction.

I don't think that just because a tenant has zero rights in the RaR sector, that the same should apply in the PRS.

The overall point is that the government's logic is as follows:

1. Tenants are treated dreadfully in the PRS,
2. To solve that we'll give them loads of rights and make it really difficult for landlords to evict even where the tenant is genuinely misbehaving
3. Landlords leave and there is a rental shortage
4. The government then decides that, because of the shortage, we'll encourage RaR where tenants for very good reasons have few rights, so tenants are being moved from a sector where they have always had rights to one where they have none. That is not to say that they are abused in RaR. The vast majority of hosts are fine and honest, but where you have no rights, there is more chance of abuse occuring.

The government seems to understand that even minimal rights in the RaR would collapse it, but don't seem to see that excessive rights/inability to deal with genuine problem tenants/criminal liability for paperwork mistakes etc. has and is continuing to hollow out the PRS.

 

[TomEdison]

The PRS isn't being "hollowed out". Both the census figures over the long term and RTB figures over the shorter term confirm that the number of dwellings avialable in the PRS is going up, not down. It may not be going up fast enough to match population growth, but that's not a really problem of the PRS "hollowing out"; it's more the result of constraints on housing supply.

What is happening, I think, is a shift from small-scale private landlords to larger-scale commercial/voluntary sector landlords and, yeah, that could be driven, in part if not in whole, by the complexity and, um, poor design and implementation, of the regulatory regime; large-scale operators are better positioned to factor these things into their business model and tool up to deal with it.

But that may be something that doesn't greatly bother the government; as I've suggest before, it's even possible that they see it as A Good Thing.

The bottom line, obviously, is that we've created a housing market in which a larger and larger share of the population cannot realistically aspire to own a house; they areand will remain long-term renters. That clearly requires a residential lettings market in which they enjoy a fair degree of security of tenure and some stability of rent. The way the market is regulated to try and achieve this may be inept, ham-fisted and excessive, but that's what's going on, and the fundamental considerations that drive this are not going to change

I don't think the government is unduly bothered by the prospect of people being driven from residential lettings into rent-a-room. There's only a small proportion of prospective tenants for whom becoming a lodger is even possible — single, childless people. Even if a married couple with children were desparate enough to try the rent-a-room option, very few homeowners would be willing to take them on as lodgers. . As the economists would say, there isn't huge cross-elasticity of demand here, so changing the rules for one of these markets will have limited effect on demand in the other. Even in the Bad Old Days, when a much larger proportion of the population lived as lodgers/boarders in other people's homes, those would did so were overwhelmingly young, single and childless

And, to the extent that there will be an effect, it might be an effect that the government would welcome. If changing the RaR rules does result in more accomodation coming onto the market, those who leave the residential lettings market to become a lodger will overwhelmingly be young singles, meaning there will be less competition for the families seeking long-term arrangement who remain the residential lettings market.

 

[Greenbook]

The PRS isn't being "hollowed out". Both the census figures over the long term and RTB figures over the shorter term confirm that the number of dwellings avialable in the PRS is going up, not down. It may not be going up fast enough to match population growth, but that's not a really problem of the PRS "hollowing out"; it's more the result of constraints on housing supply.

See previous threads on here. The RTB have been inflating tenancy numbers by including cost rentals in the PRS. Also, they catch 3k or more unregistered landlords every year. They include these in the PRS figures as new tenancies, not existing but previously unregistered tenancies.

If you look at the RTB annual report from 2019 for example, that shows 160k landlords and 303k private tenancies. Those figures are now down to 105k (likely including cost rentals) and 245k including cost rentals and previously unregistered tenancies.

What is happening, I think, is a shift from small-scale private landlords to larger-scale commercial/voluntary sector landlords and, yeah, that could be driven, in part if not in whole, by the complexity and, um, poor design and implementation, of the regulatory regime; large-scale operators are better positioned to factor these things into their business model and tool up to deal with it.

That is correct and quite clear from the figures. There is huge growth in the voluntary sector and up until 2023 or so growth among from the Funds. Anecdotally I hear that individual landlords with 50 or 100 modern well located properties are increasing as well.

But that may be something that doesn't greatly bother the government; as I've suggest before, it's even possible that they see it as A Good Thing.

I think you are correct there. They do see it as a good thing and there appears to be an active push to get us out.

The bottom line, obviously, is that we've created a housing market in which a larger and larger share of the population cannot realistically aspire to own a house; they areand will remain long-term renters. That clearly requires a residential lettings market in which they enjoy a fair degree of security of tenure and some stability of rent. The way the market is regulated to try and achieve this may be inept, ham-fisted and excessive, but that's what's going on, and the fundamental considerations that drive this are not going to change

Again, I think you are correct here. As a landlord for nearly three decades, I've no issue with rules around when you can re-set rents and realistic rules around rent increases. Likewise, I don 't have an issue with security of tenure, but 6 years/permanent tenancies is just too long and applies in all circumstances. A German style system could work here for people who don't plan to buy. My other concern is the complete inability to deal with the admittedly small cohort of tenants who seriously misbehave.

And, to the extent that there will be an effect, it might be an effect that the government would welcome. If changing the RaR rules does result in more accomodation coming onto the market, those who leave the residential lettings market to become a lodger will overwhelmingly be young singles, meaning there will be less competition for the families seeking long-term arrangement who remain the residential lettings market.

RaR really only works for singles. Few homeowners will take in families. The PRS with the 6 year/permanent tenancies now only really works for singles (and couples) as well. A single person or a couple will move on. The landlord can then raise the rent, sell, move in a family member. Families are much more likely to stay long term and are more price sensitive. Both RaR and the PRS will compete for single people. Unless the family is very well off, families have fewer and fewer options in the private market after the March 26 reforms. I'm sure this was an unintended consequence of the reforms.

 

[JamieB_]

Agree entirely with that, an anti-social tenant in your own house who you couldn't get rid of would be an absolute nightmare. Few home owners would take that risk. Likewise a tenant who moves in and doesn't pay.

Renting to an anti-social or non paying tenant in the PRS is a nightmare as well. They can stay for years, the whole system is geared towards that.

The disparity is not that tenants have so few rights in the RaR sector, you can see why, it is by way of comparison landlords' complete inability to deal with problem tenants in the PRS.

A reason why I wouldnmt be in a hurry to take up the garden room scheme either. Imagine dropping 100k on a nice garden home to rent out. Then the rules change next year and you have someone living in your garden that you cant get rid of if you dont get along.

 

[stormy]

RTB figures over the shorter term confirm that the number of dwellings avialable in the PRS is going up, not down

The RTB's own Q2 2026 data doesn't bear that out. I went through it in the Q2 thread, but in short:

Private tenancies fell. Strip out cost rental and the private register was down 179 on the quarter.

And it's all outside Dublin. Seventeen of twenty-six counties declined. Dublin +442; every other county combined −621 — Cork −242, Limerick −183, Galway −85, Mayo −80.

New tenancies collapsed. New registrations fell to 10,129, the lowest on record. Strip out cost rental and private new registrations were no more than 9,169 — down 43% on the quarter and 35% on the year. That's the flow of homes actually coming onto the market.

The family homes are going. Apartments have risen every quarter. Houses peaked in Q4 2024 and have fallen since. What's growing is small units; what's leaving is the stock a family can live in.

And the register is flattered. The RTB issued 7,008 compliance notices for failure to register in 2025, and another 1,284 in the first half of this year. The RTB has said in the past about 60% one of those adds an existing tenancy to the count, but they don't adding a home. Take them out and the decline is starker.

So is the supply that is being added. The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant pays up to €70,000 per property to refurbish vacant homes, including for rent. For rental units, the grant is only paid once the tenancy has been registered with the RTB, and there's a ten-year clawback that obliges the owner to keep re-letting. So every rental home it funds lands on the register as a condition of the public money. Over 6,000 grants have been paid to date. However many of those are lettings, each one is taxpayer-funded supply counted as private-sector growth — and the register still went backwards. The State is paying people to add homes to the private rented sector, and the sector is shrinking anyway.


Meanwhile landlord numbers fell, and the headline growth the RTB reports is AHB and cost rental — State-funded supply. All of this despite the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant and years of RTB compliance outreach.

Nor is institutional capital replacing the small landlords. IRES, the only listed residential landlord, trades at roughly a 23% discount to its NAV and is selling units above book. It's trades flat / below the level it did before the reforms were announced in June '25 and over 40% below it's peak. It's worth more broken up than as a going concern.

So no — the PRS isn't growing. It's shrinking outside Dublin, losing family homes, and being propped up in the headline numbers by the State's own tenancies and its own enforcement campaign.

 

[Greenbook]

@stormy that is the best summary of where the PRS is and is heading that I have seen.

It is such a pity that the RTB doesn't do a similar and honest analysis or that no journalist picks this up. They all parrot the RTB line - the PRS is increasing, the highest number of landlords and tenants ever! The IPOA does not provide this analysis either. They should be well able to do so.

The only point I'd add to it is that despite building over 100k houses and apartments since 2021, the PRS is still in decline - truly a remarkable result.

 

[patfert1]

IT article today

I suspect that my landlord is improperly claiming rent-a-room relief. What should I do?

Property Clinic: The landlord doesn’t live here but they’re presenting my tenancy as a rent-a-room situation

www.irishtimes.com

The headline says it all, you can imagine the rest, but I'll quote the intro.

My landlord appears to be improperly claiming rent‑a‑room relief, and I want to understand what recourse may be available to me as a tenant. I am renting in a property where the landlord does not live in the dwelling as their principal private residence, yet they have presented the arrangement with me as a “rent‑a‑room” situation, with the apparent intention of availing of the rent‑a‑room tax relief.

It's hardly surprising some property owners would do this.

I net 10-11k a year on an entire Dublin property (in an RPZ since introduction) after taxes, agent, accountant, maintenance, with major landlord responsibilities and risks.

If I lived in the property and rented out a single room to a student or young worker I can clear 14k with few responsibilities at all.

 

[JoeRoberts]

The headline says it all, you can imagine the rest, but I'll quote the intro.

If it is a real reader query (and I doubt it) then they should have no issue. They thought they have a room share but seem to have the whole house.