New rental law changes and RTB powers 14 September 2026

Greenbook said:
Most of the time it is tenants' lifestyle that is the problem. Windows not opened, extractors and fans not turned on, damp clothes left festering on clothes horses, vents blocked etc.
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There is a learned helplessness combined with a not giving a fig at play a lot of the time.

I guarantee you if it was their property they would take much better care of it.
 
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patfert1 said:
I joined this forum. Half of the questions are barely literate! However if you comb through the replies in the comments there are some useful answers. Not much we haven't already covered in detail on AAM, though.
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A frightening point is that some of the landlords on those forums seem to have no clue.

With the new rules, fines, criminal prosecutions, willingness of the Tribunals to give large compensation over small issues, they are ripe to get themselves in seriously hot water.

The PRS now is only for people who are 100% on top of the ever changing rules, have well located modern properties and vet their tenants with a fine toothcomb. Even then, it is still a risky business.

I also get the impression from these forums that overholding is a huge problem. This is not publicised by the media, the RTB or the IPOA.
 
Regarding the powers of the RTB.
(I'm picking up on part of my post in https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/rtb-rent-register.243258/page-45#post-2014969 because it seems more appropriate to continue in this thread.)

Are there other state bodies - outside the actual judicial system - which have similar legal powers? RTB tribunals can impose financial penalties and even criminalize citizens. Yet RTB tribunals are not staffed by judges. They sit outside the legal system, it would appear. Their frames of reference are at times unclear (ref. the financial award for anxiety). Decisions cannot be appealed, except on a point of law to the high court, an expensive business.

Is the RTB unique in this respect?

This isn't a rhetorical question. I really don't know.
 
patfert1 said:
RTB tribunals can impose financial penalties and even criminalize citizens. Yet RTB tribunals are not staffed by judges. They sit outside the legal system, it would appear.
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That seems like the type of thing the members of the IPOA would want clarity on. If individual landlords can’t get answers from the rtb, does a representative body have more clout?
 
I issued a rent warning notice to a tenant by email and forwarded it to the RTB the same day 6/10/2026, I got an automated reply.

"We will review your rent arrears warning notice and, if correct information was provided, we will issue an Acknowledgement of Rent Arrears Warning Notice letter within 10 business days"

10 working days have passed and I have heard nothing, I have checked the original notice and can find nothing wrong with it according to the published rules.

What do I do next, the RTB is notoriously tardy so their notion is 10 days may not be the same as mine or maybe there is an unpublished rule I am not aware of and if I issue a NOT if the rent remains unpaid based on the RWN will I be prosecuted by the RTB?
 
I'd imagine it is just tardiness with them. While we are subject to strict deadlines, they are not.

There should be a reference on the acknowledgement, so try phoning them to find out what has happened. If they don't answer the phone, they often don't, send a reminder.

Also is this 10 days in total or 10 working days ie. Mondays to Fridays, that you are counting.
 
I looked into it a little more and while my methodology appears sound on the face of it as far as the RTB can see anyway, I probably should have served the tenant by hand because even though all communication with the tenant is by email, it is not stated explicitly in the contract that email communication is allowed and this could undermine the whole process.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
 
rock pyper said:
I looked into it a little more and while my methodology appears sound on the face of it as far as the RTB can see anyway, I probably should have served the tenant by hand because even though all communication with the tenant is by email, it is not stated explicitly in the contract that email communication is allowed and this could undermine the whole process.
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Possibly you are better off starting the process all over again. You don't want to spend months waiting for this to get to Tribunal stage only to find that you are thrown out there.
 
He promised to lodge yesterday but nada, I am going to start again, serve on the tenants property by hand and record the serving process and then copy the notice and the video to the RTB and the tenant.
 
Starting again is the right call, and your plan is nearly complete. A few details that decide these cases:

  • Hand delivery is s.6(1)(a) (to the person) or s.6(1)(b) (left at the dwelling). Either works. Whoever delivers it must be able to give direct evidence at the hearing. In TR0001584 the property manager’s account of what a colleague had done was “an assertion of practice rather than proof of delivery”, and the notice failed. Video helps, but the person on the doorstep is the evidence and they must attend the Tribunal.
  • Use the RTB’s own form. s.67(3)(a) requires the notification to be “in such form as may be specified by the Board”.
  • Email the RTB copy the same day, keep the sent record and chase the acknowledgement. Then count 28 days from the later of the two receipts:
    that amount is not paid to the landlord within the period of 28 days following (i) receipt of the notification by the tenant, or (ii) receipt of the notification by the Board, whichever occurs later (s.67(3)(b), https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/2004/act/27/section/67/revised/en/html)​
    In TR0523-006263 the landlord posted both copies on 17 January 2023, the RTB logged its copy received on 3 February, and a notice of termination served on 15 February was deemed premature and invalid.
  • Put the current arrears figure in the new notice, to the euro, from your bank statements. Not the figure from the first notice.

For the record, the email notice may well have been valid. Since 1 March 2026 s.6(1)(ca) allows service to an email address “used by the person for receiving emails” where your system records the send. The problem is proof: if the tenant says at the hearing that she never checks that address, the burden is on you to prove they use it, and all you’d have is that you sent things to it. Re-serving costs three weeks. A bad notice costs a year.


What a year looks like: today’s register
Fifteen determination orders went up on the register today. Ten decided a notice of termination. Six were invalid. The orders were signed on 9 and 16 September, so they took five to six weeks to publish after the Board made them, and each one followed a hearing four to five months earlier. Not one of them says why the notice passed or failed. Adjudication orders don’t carry reasons.

  • DR0006843 (Robinstown, Westmeath): the landlord is awarded €19,375 in arrears at €750 a month. That is about 26 months of unpaid rent. His notice of termination with a stated service date of 22 October 2025 is invalid. The hearing was on 27 April 2026, the order was made on 16 September and published on 21 October. The tenants stay, with an instruction to pay €750 a month that 26 months of history says they will ignore. The landlord has a piece of paper and starts the warning-notice process again from day one, a year after he first served. He isn’t told what was wrong with the notice, so he can’t even avoid repeating it.
  • DR0006171 (Durrow Road, Dublin 12): notice of 20 October 2025 invalid. Hearing 22 May, order 9 September. Rent €2,150 a month.
  • DR0006232 (Belcarra, Mayo): notice of 24 November 2025 invalid. Hearing 13 May, order 9 September.
  • DR0006165 (Emly, Tipperary): notice of 26 November 2025 invalid. Hearing 22 May, order 9 September.
  • DR0006179 (Ballina, Mayo) and DR0006186 (Rathmines): notices of 27 November and 6 November 2025 invalid. Orders 9 September.

Even the landlords who won didn’t win quickly. In DR0006200 (Bandon) the notice of 8 May 2025 was valid and €26,000 was awarded, but the hearing was 23 June 2026 and the order 9 September: 16 months from notice to order, and the tenants still have 28 days before the landlord can go near the Circuit Court. In DR0008373 (Rialto) €7,500 was awarded with 7 days to vacate, but on a notice from December 2025 and a hearing in April.

This is the asymmetry, and it’s structural rather than any individual adjudicator’s doing. A landlord’s error, however small, costs him the notice, the rent and a year. A tenant’s non-payment costs nothing while the case runs, because the rent stops and the process doesn’t. That’s why every i has to be dotted:

  • Ten euro wrong and the notice is dead. TR0001393 (Carlow): the warning letter said €913, the ledger said €903, an €8 credit the agent had missed. The tenants didn’t appear. The Tribunal audited the accounts itself and held that “no act of default arises if the amount demanded to be paid is not in-fact due”. Warning letter invalid, notice of termination invalid, a year lost.
  • Rent means rent. TR0001066 (Donabate): a warning letter that bundled NSF fees and demand-letter charges into the arrears figure was fatal. A co-tenant’s share you were promised but never agreed in writing is the same problem (TR0001476, Sligo). Persistent late payment is worse: in TR0001404 (Tramore) the amount due on the day the letter went out was €75, so there was nothing to demand and the ground was unusable.
  • The figure must be provable, not just right. TR0725-008934 (Ballyconnell): the agent put the landlord’s figure of €1,910 in the warning notice. No bank statements, no rent schedule, and the landlord didn’t give evidence at the Tribunal. The tenants didn’t attend and the figure was never disputed. The Tribunal refused it anyway and said a warning-notice figure must be verified by bank statements, a rent schedule or the person who runs the rent account.
  • ”I sent it to the RTB” is not evidence. In 008934 the agent posted the warning notice to the RTB and the tenant on the same day, got no acknowledgement, and didn’t put the notice in the case file. The Tribunal held it “was not properly before” it, so the notice of termination fell. In TR0001367 (Waterford) the landlord read the warning letter out at the hearing. Not in the Tribunal file, so it didn’t count. Upload everything with your referral.
  • Overstate and you lose the lot. TR0001722 (Longford): the warning notice claimed €12,000 going back to before the lease started. The Tribunal found about €2,200 due at the date of the notice and struck it down. Those tenants have paid nothing since autumn 2025 and are still in the house.
  • Two documents, not one - make sure to send the warning letter. TR0001476: the only warning notice on file was in the same document as the notice of termination, both dated the same day, so the tenant never had 28 days to pay. Arrears of €6,160 were awarded, but the termination failed.
  • The notice of termination has its own clock. After the 28 days, the NoT must give at least 28 days, and since 14 September 2026 the copy must reach the RTB within 7 days of service on the tenant (s.62(1A)), failing which the notice is invalid.
  • Argutinski shows how literally the words are read. In Argutinski v RTB [2026] IEHC 225 the High Court held that a posted notice is served on the date it is deemed delivered, not the date it is posted. Landlords who posted the notice and emailed the RTB copy the same day, exactly as the RTB’s website then told them to, found the copy had gone to the RTB before the notice was served, so the notice was invalid (TR0001618, TR0001481).

Cases:
https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001584https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0523-006263https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001393 https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001066https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001404https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001476https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001367 https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001618https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001481https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001530
 
I am going to sell up too and will issue him a separate NOT in relation to that as soon as I get the legal paperwork sorted and I am going to spend the proceeds having a good fecking time.
 
Just looking at the Sligo case mentioned above by Stormy, it wasn't the tenant's first rodeo he was a former baptist minister who turned prophet by way of a piece of software which enabled him to accurately predict the outcome of sporting events, or so he told 3 of his disciples who invested 40K in his prognostications to nil return, there was a High Court sequel whereupon he promised to refund the monies.
 
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