Part 4 notice of termination after 6 years, process

[patfert1]

This question is about the correct process to terminate a Part 4 (pre June 2022) lease when it reaches 6 years.
180 days notice is required, since the tenant will be in residence for 6 years.

The process is set out here:

https://rtb.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/00-09262-Guide-on-ending-a-tenancy-before-a-Further-Part-4-tenancy-begins-2.pdf-1.pdf

Before 11 June 2022, Part 4 Tenancies lasted in 6-year cycles. A landlord could end the tenancy by serving a notice of termination before the end of the 6 year-cycle, as long as the notice expired on or after the final day of that cycle.

You must give your tenant the appropriate number of days notice based on the tenancy duration. The notice period starts the day after the notice is served. Extra days can be added to ensure the tenant gets the fullamount of notice required.

Question 1. Termination date.
Must the termination date be exactly the final day of the 6 year lease, or can it be later than that, provided I give notice within 180 days of the final day of the 6 year lease? Or can I give notice any time up until the final day of the 6 year lease, provided I observe the 180 days notice period?

Example: The lease started 1 January 2022. The 6 year lease will expire on 31 December 2027.
a) Must the termination date be exactly 31 December 2027?
b) Could the termination date be 31 January 2028, provided I give notice 180 days prior to that date?
c) Could the termination date be 29 June 2028, provided I give notice in the last day of December 2027?

I think (c), based on the first quote above.

Question 2. Notice period
180 days notice is required. Can it be longer?
I think yes, based on the second quote above.

With the above example, could I inform the tenant at the start of January 2027 that I do not intend to renew the 6-year lease and at that point issue the NoT?

Regarding Q2:
Pro: the tenant has 90 days to challenge the NoT. If they do so and the NoT is found to be invalid, I would probably still have time to issue a new NoT before the 6 year lease expires.
Con: the tenant gets a lot of advance notice, if they want to be devious and stop paying rent for example, or raise some other issue as a delaying tactic.
Pro! I am very kind to the tenant, giving them lots of time to make plans.


Question 3. What if the NoT is challenged and deemed invalid, but it's too late to issue a new one within the term of the 6-year lease?
Will it automatically roll over into a new Part-4 6-year lease and "game over" for me?

 

[Wavelly]

We are in the same position, with pre June 2022 tenancy due to end in May 2027.

This has been a problematic tenancy (regularly late with rent, complaints from neighbour, along with being trapped in an RPZ since 2016, so only fetching 60% of marking rent) so we are fairly certain we want to issue a NoT before the 6 year period finishes.

I spoke to the agent who manages this. They said we just need to issue 180 days notice before the 6 years is up. So say tenancy started on 1st May 2021, we would need to issue the NoT before 30 April 2027 giving 180 days notice, so tenancy would end 27/10/27 (with an extra few days added to be on the safe side).

However I would like to do it sooner rather than later, so I believe we could issue a NoT on 1st November 2026 (or sooner), with their final day being 1 May 2027. I am very nervous of the agent making an error on the NoT which will make it invalid. I will ask to see a draft before it is issued. If worst comes to worst and tenant challenges it, hopefully I would have time to reissue before 1 May 2027.

I'm fairly certain @stormy posted a case study where there was an error on a pre 2022 NoT and it was not resolved in time, so it converted to a tenancy of unlimited duration. If this happens to us, we will immediately issue a NoT to sell - we just want out of this game altogether!

I will keep you posted on how things pan out!

 

[patfert1]

@Wavelly, good to hear I'm not the only one in this position, and to get confirmation of what I thought. I too have an agent and I plan to double-check the NoT carefully before it is issued.

You wrote it would roll over to a TUD. While I think I read that elsewhere in the past, the RTB instruction I linked to is quite confusing about this.

You can only use this type of notice of termination before a tenancy becomes a Further Part 4 tenancy...

BUT

From 11 June 2022, the law changed. Further Part 4 Tenancies were replaced by Tenancies of Unlimited Duration,

So which is it?!

 

[stormy]

So which is it?!

Both, Pat. It's a naming problem, not a substantive one. Under s.41(1), if the cycle runs out without a valid notice having been served before it ends, a new tenancy "shall... come into being". Before June 2022 that new tenancy was a further Part 4 tenancy, a fresh six-year cycle. The 2021 Amendment Act (s.5) keeps the trigger but changes what comes into being: a tenancy of unlimited duration instead of another cycle. So "before a further Part 4 tenancy begins" means "before the point where one would have begun". What you get if you miss it is a TUD. Wavelly has it right.

On your original questions, your reading is right on all three.

Q1. Termination date
The no-reason ground is s.34(b): a notice giving the required period, served before the cycle ends and expiring on or after its last day. The termination date itself isn't fixed. So (a) no, (b) yes, and (c) yes on the wording. But don't serve on the last day, for the reason below.

Q2. A longer notice period
Yes. The s.66 periods are minimums ("not less than"), and at both five and six years it's 180 days. Your first pro is the strongest argument in the thread: serving early gives you time to fix a mistake.

But don't read silence as validity. The tenant has 90 days to challenge the notice, but most don't. They just stay. Then the landlord refers an overholding dispute, and that's when the RTB checks the notice, often on points the tenant never raised. In TR0001393 the tenants didn't even turn up. The Tribunal found a €10 error in the warning letter on its own and held the notice invalid. That's the worst time to find out: after the termination date, with the tenant already overholding and, on a cycle-end notice, the window long closed.

Q3. Notice invalid, cycle ended
Yes, that's game over for this route. Wavelly, I think TR0001481 is the case you're remembering, and it's a particularly egregious one. The landlord served a no-reason notice in March 2025 giving 227 days. On the Tribunal's own finding it was compliant with the Act in every other respect. It failed on service under Argutinski: the notice was posted to the tenant and the RTB copy emailed the same day, so the two weren't received on the same day. The Tribunal recorded that the landlord had probably followed the RTB's own published guidance on how to do this, guidance that stood for years. The right to end the tenancy expired in April 2025 while the case ran. The Tribunal refused a remedial notice because it "does not revive a statutory entitlement that has since expired". The tenancy became one of unlimited duration, permanently, because the landlord did what the RTB told him to.
So, for both of you and your agents:

• Service is receipt, not posting. If you post the tenant's copy, the RTB copy must arrive on the day the tenant's copy is received, not the day it's posted. Hand delivery to the tenant, with the RTB copy submitted the same day, takes the guesswork out of it.
• Serve early, as you both plan to. Wavelly, your dates work: served 1 November 2026, the 180th day is 30 April 2027, so a termination date of 1 May 2027 is both long enough and after the cycle ends. Your extra days are wise.
• See the notice and how it will be served before it goes. Agents get the form right and the service wrong.

Wavelly, on the fallback: a sale notice is available against a TUD that began before March 2026, but it has its own requirements, including a statutory declaration and a genuine intention to sell within nine months. It's a harder route than the one you have now, which is another reason to get this one right.

Happy to go into more detail on any of this.

 

[Greenbook]

Honestly @patfert1 and @Wavelly I'd get legal advice from a firm of solicitors who specialises in this area. There are some in Dublin, per Google anyway.

If the agent gets your NoT wrong (which is very easy as the complexities are beyond many agents these days) and it converts to a fixed 6 year tenancy, then you will be stuck in the market for another 6 years barring hardship or genuine family need. @Wavelly's tenant sounds like a nightmare and I'm sure another 6 years with this tenant who will now know he's in for 6 years guaranteed sounds like a nightmare.

You really need to find out what happens when the pre-22 ends its term and if it does convert to a fixed tenancy ensure that you have a bullet proof NoT.

 

[Greenbook]

Thanks @stormy for answering that and saving the posters what would be large legal fees, I'm sure.

At least as the pre-22 lease converts to a TUD, they can still issue an NoT to sell if the first notice is not correct and exit that way.

What a morass this is.

 

[Wavelly]

Wavelly, on the fallback: a sale notice is available against a TUD that began before March 2026, but it has its own requirements, including a statutory declaration and a genuine intention to sell within nine months. It's a harder route than the one you have now, which is another reason to get this one right.

Thanks so much Stormy as always!

Yes we will most likely sell anyway, but having to go with the terminating to sell route just gives more opportunities for us to get it wrong!

 

[patfert1]

@stormy , thanks for all that. As @Greenbook writes, I'd trust what you write more than I'd trust most solicitors with this.

One point:

the notice was posted to the tenant and the RTB copy emailed the same day, so the two weren't received on the same day.

From the RTB document I linked in the OP it says 7 days allowed in this case.

You must serve the notice on the tenant on the date of service listed in the notice. You must submit a copy to the RTB within 7 days of this date. If you do not, the notice is invalid.

I too would use the NoT-to-sell route in the case the original NoT was deemed invalid. Our scenarios are broadly the same except my tenant is ok-ish.

 

[stormy]

From the RTB document I linked in the OP it says 7 days allowed in this case.

Sorry, you're right! From 14 September 2026, the landlord has 7 days from service on the tenant to serve the copy on the RTB. Before that it had to be the same day. That was the rule when TR0001481’s notice was served, and it’s what sank him. For your notice, and Wavelly’s, it’s 7 days. (got mixed up drafting alongside references to 1481)

What hasn’t changed is Argutinski v RTB [2026] IEHC 225: service means the day the tenant receives the notice, not the day you post it. So:

• The date of service must be the day the tenant gets it, and post can’t promise that. Hand-deliver it. I bring a witness and record the handover on my phone.
• The 7 days run from that receipt date. Don’t use the whole window; submit the RTB copy the same day anyway. There’s no benefit in leaving it, and a late copy still makes the notice invalid.

The 7 days removes the trap that caught 1481. It doesn’t remove the receipt problem. A notice dated the day it was posted, and received two days later, still has the wrong date of service on it, whatever day the RTB gets its copy.

 

[Greenbook]

The 7 days removes the trap that caught 1481. It doesn’t remove the receipt problem. A notice dated the day it was posted, and received two days later, still has the wrong date of service on it, whatever day the RTB gets its copy.

Am I correct in this. If you date the Notice 1 November, email it to the RTB on 1 November and post it to the tenant on 1 November, which is what any normal person would do, you are caught - the date on the Notice should be the date the Notice is received by the tenant, which of course you can't predict in advance. Plus have you served the RTB before you served the tenant?

The number of tricks and traps is phenomenal at this stage. You can only conclude that it is a deliberate policy.

 

[Wavelly]

Am I correct in this. If you date the Notice 1 November, email it to the RTB on 1 November and post it to the tenant on 1 November, which is what any normal person would do, you are caught - the date on the Notice should be the date the Notice is received by the tenant, which of course you can't predict in advance. Plus have you served the RTB before you served the tenant?

I think you are correct on this. The RTB now recommends sending it by email to ensure same day service (but you should have a written record that they agree to receive communication this way!). I don't know my tenant's email address so that is why I'm reliant on the agent to serve the NoT on my behalf. I might ask for a copy and I will hand deliver it myself to the property on the same day also and record myself doing it!

 

[Greenbook]

I think you are correct on this. The RTB now recommends sending it by email to ensure same day service (but you should have a written record that they agree to receive communication this way!). I don't know my tenant's email address so that is why I'm reliant on the agent to serve the NoT on my behalf. I might ask for a copy and I will hand deliver it myself to the property on the same day also and record myself doing it!

I wouldn't take the risk with the agent. I'd take a day off work if necessary and do the service yourself. Between the combination of the tenant, the RTB and everything tying back to the receipt date, it is just too easy to make a mistake. Some youngster in the estate agent's office may be given the job of posting and email.