New RTB prescribed forms: signed Friday, mandatory Sunday, typos included
Rent review and rent-reset exemption notices aren't RTB house style — they're statutory forms prescribed by ministerial regulation. Every word is law, and tribunals hold landlords to every word. In TR0001393 a warning letter demanded €913 in arrears when the ledger showed €903. The tenants didn't even attend the hearing; the Tribunal found the €10 discrepancy itself, held that "no act of default arises if the amount demanded to be paid is not in-fact due," and invalidated the termination — a year after the notice was served, back to the start. All because a single character was wrong.
Now the forms the RTB has just prescribed for the rest of us (S.I. 470/2026, mandatory from 14 September):
1. A non-existent Act. The landlord's declaration, the box you tick under pain of false-information penalties, cites "section 12(1)(b) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2024." The Act is from 2004. One wrong digit, in the operative declaration, in all three forms that carry it. A landlord's single character slip invalidates a notice; the RTB's slip creates a statutory reference to an Act that doesn't exist.
2. The energy table can't hold its own units. Adjacent rows: "kWh per metre squared per year," then "kWh per metre square per year." Harmless — but copied unread into all three forms.
3. One form, two names. The rent review form gives its serving instructions as "Serving a Notice of Rent Setting" on page 1 and "Serving a Notice of Rent Review" on the last page. These aren't synonyms: setting a rent is what happens at the start of a tenancy (s.19), reviewing it is changing it during a tenancy (ss.20–22) — different statutory events, different notices, different timelines, and this form is the review one. The prescribed forms exist precisely to keep that distinction straight, and this one uses both names for itself.
4. The housekeeping. Signed 11 September, mandatory from the 14th, gazetted in Iris Oifigiúil on the 15th — the day after every landlord in the State was required to use it.
A single character slip costs a landlord a year and a restart. A non-existent Act in the statutory declaration costs the RTB nothing.
Link to new forms, complete with typos:
Rent review and rent-reset exemption notices aren't RTB house style — they're statutory forms prescribed by ministerial regulation. Every word is law, and tribunals hold landlords to every word. In TR0001393 a warning letter demanded €913 in arrears when the ledger showed €903. The tenants didn't even attend the hearing; the Tribunal found the €10 discrepancy itself, held that "no act of default arises if the amount demanded to be paid is not in-fact due," and invalidated the termination — a year after the notice was served, back to the start. All because a single character was wrong.
Now the forms the RTB has just prescribed for the rest of us (S.I. 470/2026, mandatory from 14 September):
1. A non-existent Act. The landlord's declaration, the box you tick under pain of false-information penalties, cites "section 12(1)(b) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2024." The Act is from 2004. One wrong digit, in the operative declaration, in all three forms that carry it. A landlord's single character slip invalidates a notice; the RTB's slip creates a statutory reference to an Act that doesn't exist.
2. The energy table can't hold its own units. Adjacent rows: "kWh per metre squared per year," then "kWh per metre square per year." Harmless — but copied unread into all three forms.
3. One form, two names. The rent review form gives its serving instructions as "Serving a Notice of Rent Setting" on page 1 and "Serving a Notice of Rent Review" on the last page. These aren't synonyms: setting a rent is what happens at the start of a tenancy (s.19), reviewing it is changing it during a tenancy (ss.20–22) — different statutory events, different notices, different timelines, and this form is the review one. The prescribed forms exist precisely to keep that distinction straight, and this one uses both names for itself.
4. The housekeeping. Signed 11 September, mandatory from the 14th, gazetted in Iris Oifigiúil on the 15th — the day after every landlord in the State was required to use it.
A single character slip costs a landlord a year and a restart. A non-existent Act in the statutory declaration costs the RTB nothing.
Link to new forms, complete with typos:
