RTB Case studies

[Greenbook]

Rules are the rules. Can't start carving out exceptions for this reason or that reason.

No, of course you can't, but the size of the award was huge and it ran from the date of her husband's death - as her husband lay on his death bed, she should have been drafting a letter to the tenant offering him the apartment back. In

The real issue is leeway is always shown to an errant tenant even if the tenant has been acting the maggot a bit. No leeway at all is shown to an 80 year old widow, who considering everything that was going on, should have been given a little.

She did break the rules and had to face the consequences of that. No sympathy whatsoever was shown, tenants are always treated sympathetically.

The RTB Tribunal is now 100% anti-landlord.

In short, another reason for anyone thinking of doing buy to let to be extremely careful.

In short, why no one should think of doing buy to let. An inexperienced first time landlord will get slaughtered.

 

[ClubMan]

Galway landlord overturns order directing him to pay former resident €4,700

Vitaliya Yaskozhuk told an RTB tribunal that Martin Hogan had served her with an eviction notice following an argument about bins

www.connachttribune.ie

Woman who sought €8,000 in damages for silverfish ‘infestation’ fails in RTB case

Noreen Alexander Whelan said her family left the house within days of spotting the insects and disposed of their belongings over ‘contamination’ concerns

www.irishtimes.com

 

[patfert1]

In its findings, the tribunal accepted Mr Hogan’s proof of residence

Such disputes could be avoided if everyone in ireland had a single official registered home address, as is the case in most European countries.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Folks

Read the thread title.

This is about published RTB case studies.

It is not about raising queries about your own particular situation.

Brendan

 

[stormy]

Galway landlord overturns order directing him to pay former resident €4,700

Vitaliya Yaskozhuk told an RTB tribunal that Martin Hogan had served her with an eviction notice following an argument about bins

www.connachttribune.ie

Woman who sought €8,000 in damages for silverfish ‘infestation’ fails in RTB case

Noreen Alexander Whelan said her family left the house within days of spotting the insects and disposed of their belongings over ‘contamination’ concerns

www.irishtimes.com

Fair enough, @ClubMan — landlords do win, and these are good examples. I wouldn't say the Tribunal is "100% anti-landlord" either. The problem is that you can't predict which way it'll go.

Take the silverfish. Three pest cases:

• TR0001352 (Ballybofey, your case): the family moved in, spotted silverfish, and left four days later — only telling the landlord's agent the day after they'd gone. The agent offered pest control anyway. The Tribunal said leaving without giving the landlord a chance "was not a reasonable response," and that silverfish "are not harmful and they can be eradicated." Landlord wins.
• TR0001455 (Dalkey): the tenant withheld four months' rent over silverfish and commissioned a pest report he never gave the landlord. The Tribunal gave the report no weight and said in terms it did "not accept that there was any infestation" — then awarded the tenant €1,500 for "the presence of silverfish," without saying what the landlord had failed to do.
• TR0001427 (Dublin 8): moths days after move-in. The landlord paid for pest products, then had the carpets ripped out and new floors laid in under two weeks. The Tribunal accepted he'd acted promptly, and ordered him to pay €1,000 for the disruption of the repair.

So: don't get the chance to fix it, you win. No infestation, you can still pay. Fix it promptly, you pay. One Tribunal calls silverfish harmless; another awards €1,500 for their presence. Both may be defensible on their own facts, but neither explains itself well enough for a landlord to know where the line is.

And the Galway case (TR0001285) is a win that shows what winning costs. The Tribunal concluded the RTB never had jurisdiction — he lived in the house, so it was a Rent-a-Room arrangement outside the Act. But before anyone established that, an adjudicator had found against him and ordered him to pay €4,700 — and his solicitor told the Tribunal the adjudicator decided "without hearing any evidence from the landlord." He then had to hire a solicitor, appeal, go through a public hearing, and see his name in the paper, all in a dispute the RTB had no power to decide. He won't get those costs back; the RTB process has no general costs regime. In a court, a party dragged into a case the court couldn't hear would ordinarily get his costs. Here, the property owner who was right pays to prove it.

And the report that is now the permanent public record of his case can't spell the tenant's surname the same way twice, says she was there "just under 10 weeks" between two dates five and a half weeks apart, and records that the determination clearing him was made on 13 May 1926.

 

[stormy]

He has 14 days to pay. The tenant in TR0001417 who paid rent once in eleven months has until 2033.

To add insult to injury in the moth case — where the landlord fixed the problem within two weeks — the Tribunal ordered him to pay the tenant within 14 days.

I've only just noticed: that's less time than the Act gives him to appeal. Under s.123, a Tribunal's determination order doesn't even become binding until 21 days after it's issued, precisely so that either party can appeal to the High Court first. So the RTB, a quasi-judicial body, told him to pay before its own order was binding and before his time to appeal had run out.

How is that right, fair or proper?

 

[LarryScott]

a Tribunal's determination order doesn't even become binding until 21 days after it's issued, precisely so that either party can appeal to the High Court first.

Does that technically mean that the deadline is 14 days after the order becomes effective (so 21 + 14 days total).

 

[stormy]

Does that technically mean that the deadline is 14 days after the order becomes effective (so 21 + 14 days total).

No — the Determination Order says "within 14 days of the date of issue." So the deadline falls on day 14, but the order can't be enforced until it binds on day 21 — by which point the payment is already overdue.

The RTB should know its own appeal period better than anyone. Instead it told a landlord who fixed the problem within a fortnight to pay before its own order was binding — while a tenant who paid rent once in eleven months was given until 2033. A body that sets deadlines that carelessly, and gives time that unevenly, doesn't look impartial, whatever its intentions.

And the enforceable order spells the street "Conygham." It's Conyngham.

 

[stormy]

Financially struggling 80-year-old didn't call tenant on the DAY her husband died. RTB says she owes him €19,522 for his bigger, pricier new home

The Irish Times covered this one today: "Landlord must pay €20,000 for evicting tenant from property she then used for short-term lets."

Most of the individual facts are right, and in fairness it does report her representative's side. But the way it's put together gives readers the wrong impression of what happened and why she's paying.

1. She wasn't penalised for evicting.
The headline says "for evicting tenant." The notice of termination was valid — the tenant accepted that — and the Tribunal never questioned that her intention to move in was genuine. It accepted her husband's death caused "a genuine change in her plans." The award was for one thing only: not offering the flat back after he died. "For evicting" tells every reader who stops at the headline that the eviction itself was the wrong. It wasn't.

2. "Lima had been paying €1,200 in rent."
The rent was €1,768. He paid a share; someone else paid the rest. That omission matters more than anything else in the article, because it's the reason the award is so high. The Tribunal set his share of the old rent against the whole rent of a bigger two-bed, two-bath flat he chose to take on alone — so for eight months she pays €1,450 a month towards his new home, €250 more than he ever paid her for hers. Leave out the €1,768 and that comparison disappears.

3. More than he claimed.
The article says he sought "more than €10,584 for the increased rent." He claimed €10,584. He was awarded €17,022.50 on that head — over €6,000 more than he asked for. Not mentioned.

4. "Given that the tenancy would have run until 2027."
It wouldn't have "run until" 2027. That's simply where the Tribunal chose to stop counting — the end of a Part 4 cycle in a tenancy he'd already left on a valid notice. Eleven months of the award is for future rent, assumed.

5. What's left out.
That she's "not in good financial circumstances." That her son-in-law also died. That his anxiety treatment began in March 2025 — before the date the Tribunal itself fixed as the start of any wrong. That she has 90 days to find the money.

Whose story got told.
Look at what made it in. His claim in full — €10,584 for rent, €10,000 for stress, €9,500 in aggravated damages. His allegation, quoted, that she made a "false claim" so she could "rent at a higher price to someone else." His pre-existing anxiety disorder, presented as worsened by her.

Now look at what didn't. That the Tribunal never found her claim false. That the rent was €1,768, not €1,200. That he got more than he asked for. That she's struggling financially, bereaved twice in a year, and has 90 days to pay. Every one of those is in the report, and every one of them cuts her way.

And the headline adopts his version: "for evicting tenant from property she then used for short-term lets" — the eviction as the wrong, the short-lets as the motive. The Tribunal's version is the opposite: a genuine notice, plans changed by a death, and a failure to make a phone call.

That isn't a reporter making things up. Every fact in the article is close to right. It's the selection — which facts go in, which are left out, and which framing goes in the headline — and on this one, all of it falls one way.

Most people read the headline and the first two paragraphs. What they'll take away is a landlord who evicted someone on a false pretext to cash in. What actually happened is an 80-year-old widow with a genuine notice who didn't ring her former tenant the day her husband died — and is now paying more towards his bigger flat than he ever paid her.

That's the story. It's in the report. It just isn't in the article.

 

[Bronte]

Savvy's point was that rules are rules and there can be no exceptions for circumstances. The widow got none

Savvy is correct. And I agree with the RTB in relation to the widow. I really find it hard to believe two married homeowners in their eighties planned to move into a flat they had rented out. One of them so elderly he passed away. The widow never moved in. Her legal side conceded that the flat should have been offered back to the tenant once the decision was made to no longer reside in the flat. Instead it was used for short term rental. That means the landlord broke the rules. We are professionals, and we know or ought to know you can't evict for possession if you don’t follow the clear rules. The RTB followed the rules.

As regards the financial penalty, most of it is the difference between what his old rent was versus his new higher rent. That’s a strong stick to stop landlords evicting incorrectly to get higher rents.

 

[Premos]

really find it hard to believe two married homeowners in their eighties planned to move into a flat they had rented out

Why? Clearly there were health issues involved. They might have thought it would be easier for them to manage.
I don't know how the widow would have decided to go into short let though as they would require more work.

 

[Bronte]

Why? Clearly there were health issues involved. They might have thought it would be easier for them to manage.
I don't know how the widow would have decided to go into short let though as they would require more work.

Tenant left amicable as per Nof T on 10th Jan, within 6 months it was being let short term, to executives, so high bed apartment? Tenant videoed this, on 9th July, submitting it to the RTB. Husband died in May.

To do short term rentals requires a lot of effort. Letting, meeting, cleaning, departing. Uummm. The RTB decision is based on an appeal by the non present very elderly widow. Uummm.

I would assume flat had to be repaired, fully cleaned, furnished with expensive kit for executive lettings, painted.

There was a claim of difficult financial circumstances, google tells me one beds in Drury Stephen’s street D4 are 350k.

Edit: the percentage of two people in their 80’s moving home is infinitesimal. It’s generally a forced move into assisted living or a care home.

 

[stormy]

The RTB followed the rules.

As regards the financial penalty, most of it is the difference between what his old rent was versus his new higher rent. That’s a strong stick to stop landlords evicting incorrectly to get higher rents.

On liability I don't disagree. She didn't offer it back, her side conceded that, and the offer-back rule exists for good reason. My issue is with the amount and how it was worked out.

On the intention: the Tribunal heard the evidence and never found her claim was false. It accepted her husband's death caused "a genuine change in her plans." You may find it hard to believe, but the people who heard it didn't — and an elderly couple wanting a city-centre flat near services in later life isn't that strange.

On "evicting to get higher rents": there's no finding she did. She let it short-term after her husband died rather than leave it empty. The higher-rent motive is the tenant's allegation, not the Tribunal's conclusion.

On the rent difference: it isn't the difference between his old rent and his new one like for like. The rent was €1,768; he paid a €1,200 share and someone else paid the rest. The Tribunal set his share against the whole €2,650 of a bigger two-bed, two-bath flat he took on alone. Compare full rent to full rent and the gap is €882 a month — roughly what he himself claimed. He claimed €10,584 on that head and was awarded €17,022.50.

And it's future loss. Eleven months of the award is for rent he hasn't paid yet, assumed, out to the end of a Part 4 cycle in a tenancy he'd already left. I've read dozens of these determinations and I haven't seen a landlord get the equivalent — damages for future lost rent when a tenant wrecks a property, say, or for the months it sits empty while it's repaired. The most a landlord gets is rent for the notice period the tenant should have given. Tenant loses a flat, the clock runs to 2027. Landlord loses a tenancy, the clock stops at the notice date.

And look at the time she's given to pay. Ninety days, for €19,522, from a financially struggling woman in her eighties. Compare the tenants who owe the money:

• DR0919-57065 — €2,516 at €3 a week. Sixteen years, to 2036.
• TR0001417 — €16,000 from a tenant who paid rent once in eleven months. €200 a month, eighty months, to January 2033. She hadn't even asked for instalments.

So if rules are rules, I'd say they should apply both ways: measure the loss like for like, account for the bigger flat, don't award more than was claimed, and give the widow the same patience the RTB gives tenants who don't pay. A stick against landlords who abuse own-use notices is fine. This one was measured against a woman whose notice the Tribunal accepted was genuine, with the clock starting on the day her husband died.

 

[Bronte]

On liability I don't disagree. She didn't offer it back, her side conceded that, and the offer-back rule exists for good reason. My issue is with the amount and how it was worked out.

Good we agree on that. The eviction rule was broken, from there you’re on a loser as a landlord, leaving yourself wide open. So really as a landlord myself I can’t justify the actions here. We have sprightly movers in their 80’s and short term executive rentals within 6 months of vacancy and one month of death.

On the financials, I’m on my iPad, will look at those another time. But as I said, the loss stems directly from the landlords actions, which were wrong.

 

[JamieB_]

Why? Clearly there were health issues involved. They might have thought it would be easier for them to manage.
I don't know how the widow would have decided to go into short let though as they would require more work.

My aunt and uncle did it. No stairs. No garden maintenance etc. They were going to rent out their original house that they lived in then, but they decided to sell that instead of renting it.

 

[Greenbook]

TR0001352 (Ballybofey, your case): the family moved in, spotted silverfish, and left four days later — only telling the landlord's agent the day after they'd gone. The agent offered pest control anyway. The Tribunal said leaving without giving the landlord a chance "was not a reasonable response," and that silverfish "are not harmful and they can be eradicated." Landlord wins.

Here as well the tenants claimed an 'infestation'. All their clothes had to be destroyed and they claimed for the cost of replacement. However, they could only produce one picture showing 5 silverfish, so hardly an infestation. The previous tenant confirmed that he had seen the occassional silverfish during his tenancy, but had not informed the managing agent because the sitings were so rare and so few silverfish were involved, it just wasn't worthwhile. So a clear shakedown for money here by the tenant, something which seems to be coming increasingly common.

And the report that is now the permanent public record of his case can't spell the tenant's surname the same way twice, says she was there "just under 10 weeks" between two dates five and a half weeks apart, and records that the determination clearing him was made on 13 May 1926.

Terry Gorry's problem, couldn't get an order from the District Court because of a spelling mistake, which couldn't be rectified, in the Tribunal Order. A common issue I'd say. Terry Gorry got lucky, the tenant moved out herself. Otherwise, he would presumably have to start the whole process all over again.

And the Galway case (TR0001285) is a win that shows what winning costs. The Tribunal concluded the RTB never had jurisdiction — he lived in the house, so it was a Rent-a-Room arrangement outside the Act. But before anyone established that, an adjudicator had found against him and ordered him to pay €4,700 — and his solicitor told the Tribunal the adjudicator decided "without hearing any evidence from the landlord." He then had to hire a solicitor, appeal, go through a public hearing, and see his name in the paper, all in a dispute the RTB had no power to decide. He won't get those costs back; the RTB process has no general costs regime. In a court, a party dragged into a case the court couldn't hear would ordinarily get his costs. Here, the property owner who was right pays to prove it.

Shocking that the first Tribunal didn't hear any evidence at all from the landlord. He was only able to submit evidence when he hired a solicitor himself.

That isn't a reporter making things up. Every fact in the article is close to right. It's the selection — which facts go in, which are left out, and which framing goes in the headline — and on this one, all of it falls one way.

It's always the selection, painting landlords in a bad light. Violet Ann Wynne (former SF TD) and her partner destroyed a house they rented with 'works' including hanging childrens' beds out of the ceilings. It was discussed at one point that there might be rodents in the dwelling, likely caused by the works. The landlord said she'd get a professional to look at it and didn't. Violet Ann Wynne was awarded compensation and that was the headline. The reality was the landlord was trying to evict her for a litany of problems.

 

[Bronte]

decided to sell that instead of renting it.

What age were they? We sold and downsized for health issues. Renting with lift, parking, in a city, gardens not our responsibility… will have to downsize again though. This is hard. Moving is difficult, it’s also emotional. I most certainly will not be moving in my eighties. My final move in my 60’s will be Ireland, to something age proof, no stairs, couldn’t imagine in my 80’s moving into Temple Bar bustle. I had a look at those flats and their location, very unappealing. But fantastic for younger people working in the city.

 

[stormy]

Tenant left amicable as per Nof T on 10th Jan, within 6 months it was being let short term, to executives, so high bed apartment? Tenant videoed this, on 9th July, submitting it to the RTB. Husband died in May.

To do short term rentals requires a lot of effort. Letting, meeting, cleaning, departing. Uummm. The RTB decision is based on an appeal by the non present very elderly widow. Uummm.

I would assume flat had to be repaired, fully cleaned, furnished with expensive kit for executive lettings, painted.

There was a claim of difficult financial circumstances, google tells me one beds in Drury Stephen’s street D4 are 350k.

Edit: the percentage of two people in their 80’s moving home is infinitesimal. It’s generally a forced move into assisted living or a care home.

On the financials, I’m on my iPad, will look at those another time. But as I said, the loss stems directly from the landlords actions, which were wrong.

Agreed — she broke the rule and she's liable. Where we differ is the size of the bill, and I'll be interested in your view when you've had a look at the figures.

A few quick points on your earlier post, though, because some of it isn't in the report:

The timeline. He left in January. Her husband died on 18 May. The short-lets were in July. So it's not that her plans changed within six months of him leaving — they changed within weeks of her husband dying. The Tribunal accepted that death caused "a genuine change in her plans."

Repairs, cleaning, expensive kit. Nothing in the report about any of that. The Tribunal heard the evidence and didn't find she'd set it up as a business.

"An appeal by the non-present very elderly widow." Both sides appealed. The tenant appealed too — he wanted more.

The €350k flat. Owning a flat isn't having €19,522 in the bank. Asset-rich, income-poor is common at her age, and finding that in 90 days may mean selling the flat.

I think we have to stick to what's actually in the report here. It's easy to fill the gaps with assumptions — sprightly movers, expensive kit, a hidden motive — but the Tribunal had the evidence in front of it and didn't find any of that. If we're going to judge her, let's judge her on what happened, not on what we imagine might have. That's the standard we'd want applied to us.

On "the loss stems from her actions" — yes. But that's my point. If the award is meant to compensate his loss, it should measure his loss: his old rent against a comparable new one. Instead it's his €1,200 share of a €1,768 flat set against the whole €2,650 of a bigger one, giving him €17,022 on a head where he claimed €10,584. The excess over what he lost isn't compensation. It's a penalty — on a woman whose notice the Tribunal found genuine.

 

[Bronte]

they could only produce one picture showing 5 silverfish, so hardly an infestation. The previous tenant confirmed that he had seen the occassional silverfish during his tenancy, but had not informed the managing agent because the sitings were so rare and so few silverfish were involved, it just wasn't worthwhile. So a clear shakedown for money here by the tenant, something which seems to be coming increasingly common.

In my rental I have silverfish periodically. They are coming from the drains. I hate them. I deal with them. It’s not an infestation. It’s not my landladies fault. It’s life. The idea of me leaving because of them is nuts, suing my landlord laughable.

Friends of ours invited us to stay on their expensive 3 bed in Puerto Banus, one armchair had hundreds of silverfish as tge place had been empty for so long, the wife just got rid of them.

I do not see why a tenant should get compensation for silverfish unless the issue is caused by some misdeed of the landlord. Same thing with moths. One of my children has mice, they got a mousetrap. Ancient city building.

The RTB panders to a lot of nonsense. Thank you for highlighting such cases.

 

[Bronte]

The timeline. He left in January. Her husband died on 18 May. The short-lets were in July. So it's not that her plans changed within six months of him leaving — they changed within weeks of her husband dying. The Tribunal accepted that death caused "a genuine change in her plans."

Stormy I have said as much as I can on this. The facts are there, given the circumstances, and the fact it’s a named individual WE have to let this drop.