New rental law changes and RTB powers 14 September 2026

JoeRoberts said:
But they can't if it goes against govt ideology and spin.
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Yes, recently the RTB were saying that they had the highest number of tenancies on record (since the series began of course) at 245k. That figure included 5k cost-rentals. PRS tenancies were flat (before you include previously unregistered tenancies), despite the record house building.

No journalist checked the RTB Report to see the make up of the 245k. If they had, the cost rental element would have been obvious.

Whatever dodgy number the RTB produces, that is just reproduced without question.
 
I don't think it's got anyhing to do with government indeology, government spin or government funds. It's much more basic than that.

It can't have escaped anyone's attention that property journalism in Ireland is intimately entwined with the newspaper's interest in carrying property advertising. This is one of the last signficant revenue streams left to newspapers, so they will do everything to encourage it, nothing to jeopardise it. Hence the warm and friendly relations between those who write the property pages and those who advertise in them. Most of the editorial copy is the product of this relationship. This has been so for a long time.

It is emphatically not in estate agents' interests to suggest that the business of landlording is not profitable and rewarding for small-scale landlords, since acting as agents for small-scale landlords, in return for a commission on rent, is a significant line of business for them.

So even if Irish newspapers had the resources for serious investigative journalism — and few of them have many resources for that these days — it's unlikely they would allocate their resources to this particular investigation. The way the media market works, they are strongly disincentivised from doing so.

(For what it's worth, I don't think the government would be greatly bothered if they did do that. It seems obvious that the government would like to see residential letting consolidated into a relatively smaller number of relatively larger, professional landlords. Media coverage which tended to accelerate that process might not be particularly unwelcome.)
 
TomEdison said:
(For what it's worth, I don't think the government would be greatly bothered if they did do that. It seems obvious that the government would like to see residential letting consolidated into a relatively smaller number of relatively larger, professional landlords. Media coverage which tended to accelerate that process might not be particularly unwelcome.)
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I think there is something in that alright.

The new rules are skewed in favour of the Funds and Reits. It may explain why a small landlord with a long term tenant on a capped rent for years wasn't helped. That is unlikely to be an issue for the Funds, their tenants are well off and mobile, so the vast majority on low capped rents will move off. The small landlord's tenant won't so the small landlord has no option but to exit and sell.

Likewise, with the life long tenancies, treating Joe the retired plumber in Mallow renting out a bunglaow, two apartments and a town house as being in the same category as IRES Reit - he, at his age, won't be able to risk a tenant staying forever. Again, he has to exit and sell.

There will be official handwringing about it, but yes, it does seem they want us out. All the fines, penalties, complex rules and forms and criminal prosecutions may have the same thinking behind them. Large landlords will cope fine, we won't.
 
Article from the Limerick Leader here on Minister Brown's comments on Limerick rent increases at the recent FF conference

He says

He told reporters: “We’ve also seen an increase in the number of landlords and in the number of tenancies, and we’re seeing an increase in investment as well.

“If we didn’t make changes, we weren’t going to see any of those, and we would have been effectively freezing the rental crisis.”

The latest RTB figures show stagnant numbers at best, when you factor in unregistered tenancies, numbers are consistently falling. There was a surge in evictions. Anyone keeping an eye on Daft will ex-rentals constantly for sale. Contacting estate agents or the IPAV would confirm this trend. Their own newspapers constantly report the exodus, yet these comments are accepted and regurgitated without question. The Minister's plan is working, more landlords, more tenancies, more investrment! It is lies and propaganda at this stage.
 
Greenbook said:
We’ve also seen an increase in the number of landlords and in the number of tenancies, and we’re seeing an increase in investment as well
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They are talking about a few hundreds at best. The population has increased by more than 78k from April 2024 to April 2025.
 
Greenbook said:
He told reporters: “We’ve also seen an increase in the number of landlords and in the number of tenancies, and we’re seeing an increase in investment as well.
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Indeed. Officially both the number of registered private tenancies fell (241,251 down to 241,072) and the number of landlords (105,847 down to 105,555).

As Greenbook says this decline is despite the RTB compliance campaign and despite the extraordinary state supports in the form of the vacant property grant propping up the private rented tenancies numbers.

He's simply out of touch with reality.

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Premos said:
They are talking about a few hundreds at best. The population has increased by more than 78k from April 2024 to April 2025.
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And about 35k houses and apartments per year have been built in 2025 and 2026.

On a net basis, not one of these has been bought by a private landlord.

One of Minister Brown's statement is honest enough though. He says

“If we didn’t make changes, we weren’t going to see any of those, and we would have been effectively freezing the rental crisis.”

Translation - our policy of rent control and changing the rules every three months has failed. But the answer of course is more rent control, two different types of eviction ban and more rule changes!
 
stormy said:
There are loads and loads of cases like this. In the below (published over the past few months alone), the 7 day notice was valid, but the tenant was still in tenancy months later

TR0001493 (Iveagh Trust): tenant took a hammer into a neighbour's flat and assaulted them; CCTV; admitted. ~10 months to a possession order, still in situ at the hearing.

TR0001421 (Circle VHA): tenant threatened to "rip a neighbour's teenage son's head off" in a shop, then tried to lure him somewhere "with no cameras and no witnesses." Admitted it. ~10 months late, still there.

TR0001347 (Focus Housing): Greenbook's dogs/robbery case. ~19 months from warning notice to order.

TR0001059 (Respond): tenant brandished a knife, arrested by the Armed Response Unit, pleaded guilty. ~17 months still there.

TR0001047 (Co-operative Housing): tenant assaulted a heavily pregnant neighbour
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Stormy, this is a great and very insightful post. Tracking through the various cases would form the basis of a great series of articles in a national newspaper.

Edit - is see some people above came to the same conclusion before me!
 
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IPOA being cowardly again.

Commenting on the case where the landlord had to compensate €10,000 the neighbour who was bullied by his tenant, they say

The IPOA Code of Practice and Ethics specifically requires members to:
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Have policies and procedures for dealing with disputes between tenants and neighbours
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Investigate written complaints and, where necessary, enforce the conditions of occupancy
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Keep proper records
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Respond promptly to reasonable requests
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Monitor what happens when a Notice of Termination has been served
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Investigate immediately where a tenant fails to leave on the required date and take appropriate action

So Joe the retired plumber renting out one small house should have a detailed written policy and set of procedures in place in case his tenant picks a fight with the neighbour or vice versa and start accusing each other of anti-social behaviour.

The real question they should be asking is how a small landlord is supposed to deal with accusations of anti-social behaviour from his tenant when his hands are tied behind his back because:

1. If he incorrectly accuses the tenant or wrongly tries to evict him, he'll have to compensate the tenant
2. If he believes his tenant's version of events (which may be correct), he may still end up having to compensate the neighbour

The small landlord doesn't have a plethora of staff to investigate the incidents, access to CCTV footage, expensive solicitors on call etc. like an AHB has and AHBs still struggle with these issues.

I really like 'investigate written complaints' - how does the small landlord to this? The tenants says one thing and the neighbour says the complete opposite. Also 'enforce the conditions of occupancy' - the RTB and the rules actively prevent you from doing this.

'Monitor what happens when a Notice of Termination has been served' - how do you do this, park your car outside the house and spy on the tenant? You'd be in trouble for that as well.

'Investigate immediately where a tenant fails to leave on the required date and take appropriate action' - all that'll happen here is you'll spot the tenant hasn't left and it is off to the courts for an enforcement order which will take months.

Instead of arguing the landlords' side and the difficulties small landlords face in these situations, you get this advice which give the impression it is all fault of a landlord in a situation like this and there are a number of simple and effective steps he could take.
 
The comments on the IPOA post are far more sensible

You can’t get the tenants out. Doesn’t matter what they do. It’s impossible

crazy issuing a fine to a landlord who couldn’t get out a tenant that won’t follow any rules! Always on the tenants side even when the tenant is in the wrong! No wonder landlords are being lost.

Welcome to the RTB ****show
 
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Greenbook said:
Commenting on the case where the landlord had to compensate €10,000 the neighbour who was bullied by his tenant, they say
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This is an extraordinary post by the IPOA. A landlord who served two notices, still couldn't remove the tenant, and was held personally liable to the neighbour anyway. A textbook example of a small landlord left carrying the can for a broken system.

Not a word that a landlord who did everything on that checklist would still be facing a two-year grind, funding and pursuing Circuit Court enforcement the whole time, with open-ended liability throughout.

Handed a case that perfectly proves the system is stacked against its own members, the body meant to defend us reaches for a membership pitch and furthered the bad individual landlord narrative. The funds have lobbyists. We have a trade body that answers a systemic horror story with a sales pitch.
 
stormy said:
Handed a case that perfectly proves the system is stacked against its own members, the body meant to defend us reaches for a membership pitch and furthered the bad individual landlord narrative. The funds have lobbyists. We have a trade body that answers a systemic horror story with a sales pitch.
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It is unbelievable. It may be the declining small landlord numbers that it causing them to act like this. Everything they post of Facebook ends with a pitch to join them.

Advising a landlord with an anti-social tenant to have policies and procedures in place is crazy. The dangerous dogs/robbery tenant, among many other things, seems to have tried to throw a woman off the balcony of the apartment and robbed the local shop at knife-point. We're failing in our duties as landlords if we don't have a set of policies and procedures to deal with situations like that!
 
Greenbook said:
Here is the IPOA Facebook page. It is the second post and has four comments.
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Thanks.

Weirdly, if you click on "newest" it shows four comments, but if you click on "most relevant" it shows 3.

I think the IPOA are scared of been seen to be combative in any way.

During the committee hearings in February, they were very careful to say that they always told their members to follow the law.

There was no way they would encourage any kind of civil disobedience, or anything that could even be spun in that direction.
 
LarryScott said:
I think the IPOA are scared of been seen to be combative in any way.
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That's for sure. No push back at all. Seems like a vassal of the RTB at this stage.

As far as I can tell they didn't even flag to members of the latest set of changes to the RTA when it was going through the Oireachtas. How can members speak to TDs etc if they aren't made aware.
 
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