80 and 83. He died at 85 and she is still healthier than I am.
RTB Case studies
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Exactly and one of the claims was that they had to destroy all their clothes and weret looking for compensation for the cost of new clothes. All they could show was one picture of 5 silverfish.
That is the problem, it panders to a lot of nonsense and while the silverfish tenants lost, the approach of the Tribunals overall seems to be to send the tenants away with some cash no matter how minor or exaggerated the problem.
The approach in Ireland is that the landlord is responsible for absolutely everything. We've seen that especially with the anti-social behaviour cases. The tenant is acting anti-socially but suffers no sanction. The landlord gets punished for 'not doing enough' to police the tenant's behaviour. It's not taken into account that the tenant may be a terrifying thug. One tenant robbed a shop at knifepoint and tried to throw a woman off a balcony. It's also not taken into account that this may just be two neighbours who don't get on and are now making accusations of anti-social behaviour against each other, that's often impossible to sort out or put a stop to.
The Tribunal never stands back and says is the landlord really responsible for all this or what is actually going on here.
Pat, I'd love to be treated like a hotel.
- Check-out time. A hotel guest leaves when the booking ends. No Part 4, no indefinite tenancy, no 224-day notice, no statutory declaration.
- Pricing. A hotel charges whatever the market will bear tonight. No 2% cap, no rent review form, no refund back to the first euro if you get the paperwork wrong.
- Non-payment. A guest who doesn't pay is out the same day and the bill goes on the card on file. Nobody gives him eighty months to settle it.
- Damage. Trash the room and it's charged to the card. No one-month deposit cap, no proving it line by line a few years later.
- Bad behaviour. A guest who threatens the neighbouring room is gone that night. The hotel doesn't pay the neighbour €10,000 because the guest wouldn't leave.
- Repairs. Pipe bursts, the guest is moved to another room and maybe gets a free breakfast. Nobody's awarded €1,000 for the disruption of the plumber.
- The owner's own room. A hotelier can stay in his own hotel whenever he likes. He not his family are never barred from it, and nobody sends him a bill for not ringing a former guest the day his husband died.
- Paperwork. No registration of every guest with a regulator, no same-day-or-seven-day copy rules, no criminal offence for getting a form wrong.
Agreed.
Incidentally, regarding the FOI request we discussed earlier for the guidance issued to decision makers at the RTB.
I found such a request in Q4 2024.
Request FOI 83 24. It's well-worded, contains many parts. It was Part-Granted. It is not stated which parts were granted.
Requested the following:
I agree. I mentioned on another thread that I have found myself in the situation where a neighbour of my tenant has tracked down my home address and written to me asking that I take action for the unsocial behaviour of my tenant (complaining of noise, parking in his spot etc). I have never met my tenant, the tenancy is fully managed by a letting agent. The agents contacted the tenants about the complaints, and then received a reply from the tenants complaining about harassment from the neighbour, taking photos of them coming and going .
It sounds like it’s mostly just two neighbours who don’t get on, yet I (who has never met either of them) am somehow expected to resolve their differences or risk being brought to the RTB. I don’t get on with my neighbour but we both own our properties so we have the choice to either move or put up with it!
TheJournal has now run the same case: "Landlord ordered to pay almost €20,000 after evicting tenant and using apartment for short-term lets."
Same two problems as the Irish Times version. It gives his rent as "€1,200 per month" — the rent was €1,768, he paid a share, and that's the whole reason the award ran €6,000 past what he claimed. And it says the tenancy "would have run until 2027," when that's just where the Tribunal stopped counting.
It also reproduces the report's own contradiction without noticing: in one paragraph the notice was for "a family member," in another for "her own occupation."
Left out again: "not in good financial circumstances," the second bereavement, and 90 days to pay.
And neither outlet mentions the parts of the decision that should trouble anyone, landlord or tenant:
- The clock started the day her husband died. The Tribunal fixed 18 May 2025 — the date of his death — as the day she should have offered the flat back. Not a week later, not after the funeral. That day.
- He got more than he asked for. €10,584 claimed for rent; €17,022.50 awarded.
- A bigger flat, paid for by her. He moved from a share of a €1,768 flat to a two-bed, two-bath at €2,650, alone. Her representative raised it; the Tribunal said that without figures it could make no finding, and charged her the full difference.
- Eleven months of future rent. Run out to May 2027 in a tenancy he'd already left on a valid notice.
- Anxiety that pre-dated the wrong. €2,500 for a condition whose treatment began in March 2025 — before the date the Tribunal itself says she did anything wrong.
- Ninety days to pay. Tenants who owe landlords get 80 months (TR0001417) or 16 years (DR0919-57065).
- Not even deductible. Damages to a former tenant aren't an allowable rental expense, so she pays out of taxed income; he receives it tax-free.
Two national outlets, same report, same omissions. Neither says what the rent actually was. Neither says he got more than he asked for. Every fact that cuts her way is missing from both.
LarryScott
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I wonder if this ruling is better than the alternative.
Imagine if they said that he had to be allowed to move back in. In fact, isn't that supposed to be the consequence of not offering back?
Obviously, his current place is better, but he will have to pay the full amount going forward, so he may not have asked for it.
You've put your finger on it — and @patfert1 asked the same question about who these people are, so I've been looking into it.
Who sits on a Tribunal? Under s.103 of the Act, a Tribunal is three members of the RTB's Dispute Resolution Committee, appointed by the Board. Under s.159, Committee members are appointed by the Board after consulting the Minister. And the only standard the Act sets is in s.157(3)(a): the Board must "have regard to the range of qualifications and experience necessary" for the job.
That's it. No legal requirement that a member be a lawyer, a doctor, a surveyor, or anything else. The law itself asks for nothing specific. In practice many are solicitors or barristers.
And it hasn't always got even that right. In 2009 the Oireachtas had to pass an Act retrospectively deeming every Committee appointment and every Tribunal constituted under the Act prior to then to be valid, despite breaches of the appointment rules by the RTB. There was potentially thousands of determinations open to challenge as made without jurisdiction. You'll m see that Act was rushed through and they knew it might be unconstitutional (Section 2 (3)). Landlords get no such indulgence when their paperwork is wrong.
So who's valuing anxiety? Not a doctor, and not anyone required to be. A court valuing distress has the Book of Quantum and appeal decisions to keep it consistent. The RTB has neither. The report doesn't say how it got to €2,500 rather than €500 or €5,000. With no scale, no expert and no reasoning on the figure, it's a number with no visible basis.
And look at what it's paying for. His treatment started in March 2025. The Tribunal itself says the wrong began on 18 May — the day her husband died. So part of the €2,500 is for anxiety that existed before she'd done anything wrong, and the award expressly includes "the process of having to vacate" on a notice nobody found invalid.
Landlords can claim it too. The power to award damages is in s.115 of the Act, and it isn't one-sided: a determination can direct any party to pay damages to another. Nothing in the section limits distress to tenants. A landlord dealing with overholding, arrears or a tenant who won't leave is as entitled to claim it as a tenant is.
So why don't they get it? In all the determinations I've read, I haven't seen a single landlord awarded anything for distress. I can only guess at why, but a few possibilities:
- Tenants ask for it regularly; landlords almost never do. In the cases I've read, tenants routinely claim for stress and anxiety, often with GP letters or prescriptions — €10,000 in TR0001469, €8,000 in TR0001352 (dismissed), anxiety and counselling in TR0001427 (dismissed), illness in TR0001354, and distress folded into the illegal-eviction awards in TR0001483 and TR0001602. They don't always win, but they ask.
- Landlords rarely ask. I haven't found a single one who did (I'm at about 100 cases reviewed now over the past few months).
- There's no point. In an arrears case the tenant usually can't pay what's already owed. Adding damages to an order that's being paid at €200 a month changes nothing.
This should be tested. Irish law requires decision-makers to give adequate reasons — the Supreme Court said so in Mallak (2012) and Connelly (2018) — so the parties can understand a decision and challenge it.
A €2,500 award with no explanation of the figure, or €200 a month for eighty months with no reasoning, is exactly what that principle is there to catch.
No individual landlord is going to spend tens of thousands in the High Court over €2,500. That's what a representative body is for.
If the IPOA were serious about landlords, it would be funding a test case on reasons — not posting on Facebook a newspaper article naming a landlord who couldn't get his tenant out, and calling him "poor practice." One High Court decision requiring the RTB to show its working would do more for landlords than a decade of codes of practice.
Even if the IPOA cannot or is unwilling to fund a test case, they could at least be highlighting these decisions and the problems with them. They could do this on their FB page, rather than telling landlords to create policies and protocols to deal with knife wielding anti-social tenants.
From reading the landlords' FB pages, I get the impression that some landlords are currently granting 6 year leases without really understanding what they are doing or the problems that they are likely to face - the ones we've seen, exaggerated claims like the five silverfish, landlord held liable for an adult tenant's anti-social behaviour, criminal prosecution for paperwork mistakes etc.
The IPOA should be jumping up and down warning that this is the reality of PRS now rather than pushing for tax reliefs in the Budget which they have absolutely zero chance of getting.
The offer-back duty is the landlord's obligation during the tenancy period that follows the notice — if the property becomes available within the relevant period, she has to offer it back. If she doesn't, the remedy under s.56 is damages for being "unjustly deprived" of the tenancy, not an automatic right to move back in. The Tribunal could in principle direct that a tenant be allowed to resume possession, but I've not seen it, and he wasn't seeking it here.
And on these figures, I agree, reinstatement would almost certainly have been the better outcome for her. She'd have had a tenant paying €1,768 a month again. Instead she pays him €1,450 a month for eight months, then €350, through to 2027, while getting nothing from him.
For him it's the reverse: the award means he keeps the bigger flat with her subsidising the gap until 2027. So you're right that he probably wouldn't have asked to come back — the money's better than the flat
When did she start the short term letting to companies? I would have thought the going rate for short term corporate lets would be significantly higher than €1780 per month? So maybe it was still the better outcome for her?
Fair question, but there's no proof it was let to companies. The report says she let it on short weekly arrangements after her husband died in May 2025, and the tenant found and filmed an occupant in July. It says nothing about who those occupants were, and gives no figures at all for what she earned. Her representative's evidence was that she was "never motivated by personal gain" and wanted the place occupied for insurance and security rather than left empty. I don't think we should speculate beyond that.
And either way, it wouldn't change the bill. The award isn't based on what she made; it's based on what he lost. The Tribunal never looked at her income from the short lets. Had she earned nothing from them, she'd still owe exactly the same €19,522
LarryScott
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I am not sure. If he moved back in, she would have to start the whole NoT process again ... it could be years (and who knows if he would bother to pay rent for the duration).
19k is a large burn, but at least she is done with it.
The RTB will penalise you if you treat a fellow human with compassion
During Covid, a Galway landlord did what a lot of us would do. His tenant lost his job and couldn't pay the full rent. The landlord didn't serve notices or start proceedings. He took what the tenant could afford, kept him in his home, and waited. When the tenant got work again, he went back to paying full rent. The shortfall came to EUR 1,836.
When the landlord later claimed it at the RTB, the Tribunal refused (TR0823-006554, determined January 2024, published May 2025).
The Tribunal called his conduct "commendable and indeed not required by the Act". Then it held that because he had accepted lower payments and not chased the balance, the two of them had made an agreement, the tenant had relied on it by staying and paying, and the landlord "was not entitled to agree to one thing, have the Respondent Tenant act on foot of it, and then resile from that". An informal arrangement to pay what he could became a permanent write-off.
The report contradicts its own statement of the law
Here is how the Tribunal itself set out the rule, a few paragraphs earlier:
"the default position is that where there is an agreed rent, there is ordinarily a liability to pay rent unless validly reviewed. Where there is no valid review, a landlord is entitled to payment as agreed."
And again: "Where parties enter into legally binding arrangements relating to rent and where there is no valid review, they should ordinarily be bound by the rent."
There was no valid review here. No notice, no prescribed form, nothing. On a strict reading of the law, the one the Tribunal itself recited, the rent stayed as agreed.
What the landlord had done was accept less during a crisis, in a conversation about what the tenant could afford. Whether that was a reduction or a deferral was never written down, and the Tribunal resolved the doubt against the landlord.
And note what the same report did with the landlord's notice in this same case. There it demanded strict compliance: no contractor named, notice invalid, no slip rule. Strict law for the landlord's paperwork, flexible equity for the tenant's rent, in one report.
Strict for landlords, flexible for tenants: the pattern
This isn't one odd case. Put it beside others.
A tenant's hardship can't waive arrears, but a landlord's kindness can. In TR0001367 (Waterford, 2026), a tenant asked for her arrears to be reduced because of her personal circumstances. The Tribunal said it "does not have any power to waive rent arrears on the grounds of personal circumstances". So the RTB itself can't write off a tenant's arrears out of compassion. But when the landlord does it voluntarily, the RTB holds him to it forever.
The formality only binds landlords. In TR0001404 (Tramore, 2026), on the landlord's evidence, the tenant agreed a EUR 125 rent increase by email, and they signed a new lease at the higher rent, a lease the tenant drafted herself. The Tribunal struck the whole increase out because no formal rent review notice had been served: the Act is "mandatory in this regard and gives the Tribunal no discretion whatsoever". Fifteen months of the increase, EUR 1,875, was knocked off what she owed him. To be fair, the increase was also over the 2% cap, so part of it could never have stood. But the Tribunal didn't trim it to the lawful amount; it struck all of it, on the formality alone.
Now put the two cases side by side. In Galway, the rent went down with no notice, no form and nothing in writing, and the Tribunal held the landlord to it. In Tramore, the rent went up by written agreement, in a signed lease, and the Tribunal threw it out for want of a notice. The Act's notice rule applies to a new rent whichever way it moves. The RTB enforces it only one way: when the change favours the tenant, informality is enough; when it favours the landlord, nothing short of the prescribed notice will do.
A tenant's conduct isn't agreement; a landlord's is. In https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001584 (TR0001584) (Harold's Cross, 2026), tenants paid an increased rent for 18 months. The Tribunal held that "the fact of payment does not validate a notice that was not validly served, nor does it amount to an agreement to a new rent". Eighteen months of the tenant paying more was not agreement. A few months of the landlord accepting less was.
And the procedure counts one way. The Galway landlord lost his refurbishment notice partly for not naming a contractor or giving a detailed description. In TR0001367, another Tribunal held that the Act "does not mandate the identification of a contractor in the absence of one being employed" and does not require "contractor-level breakdowns", and cured two omitted statements under the slip rule. The Act says "the name of the contractor, if any". The Galway notice did also lack a professional's certificate and a planning statement, so its outcome can be squared, but the standard applied to the rest of it can't.
Taken one at a time, each of these can be explained. Taken together, every gap in the law is filled in the tenant's favour, and every formality is enforced against the landlord.
In fairness
The Galway Tribunal gave a second reason for refusing the arrears: the landlord had no bank statements or rent account to prove the figure, and four months between mediation and hearing to find them. That's a fair point. But the main finding stands on its own. Even with perfect records, the claim would have failed, because he'd been kind and hadn't chased it.
The landlord's own evidence didn't help him either. He accepted there had been "some ambiguity", that he'd never told the tenant the balance was outstanding, and that he hadn't intended to chase it until the issue came up at mediation. That's exactly why the advice below matters.
My advice: don't be nice
I never thought I'd write that. But on the RTB's own reasoning, any flexibility you show a tenant can be turned into a permanent concession. A month's grace becomes a rent reduction. Patience becomes a gift. So the safe course is the one nobody wants: enforce the lease as written, from day one. Rent due on the date it's due. Arrears letters when arrears arise.
If you still choose to help someone through a bad patch, and plenty of us will, protect yourself.
During Covid, a Galway landlord did what a lot of us would do. His tenant lost his job and couldn't pay the full rent. The landlord didn't serve notices or start proceedings. He took what the tenant could afford, kept him in his home, and waited. When the tenant got work again, he went back to paying full rent. The shortfall came to EUR 1,836.
When the landlord later claimed it at the RTB, the Tribunal refused (TR0823-006554, determined January 2024, published May 2025).
The Tribunal called his conduct "commendable and indeed not required by the Act". Then it held that because he had accepted lower payments and not chased the balance, the two of them had made an agreement, the tenant had relied on it by staying and paying, and the landlord "was not entitled to agree to one thing, have the Respondent Tenant act on foot of it, and then resile from that". An informal arrangement to pay what he could became a permanent write-off.
The report contradicts its own statement of the law
Here is how the Tribunal itself set out the rule, a few paragraphs earlier:
"the default position is that where there is an agreed rent, there is ordinarily a liability to pay rent unless validly reviewed. Where there is no valid review, a landlord is entitled to payment as agreed."
And again: "Where parties enter into legally binding arrangements relating to rent and where there is no valid review, they should ordinarily be bound by the rent."
There was no valid review here. No notice, no prescribed form, nothing. On a strict reading of the law, the one the Tribunal itself recited, the rent stayed as agreed.
What the landlord had done was accept less during a crisis, in a conversation about what the tenant could afford. Whether that was a reduction or a deferral was never written down, and the Tribunal resolved the doubt against the landlord.
And note what the same report did with the landlord's notice in this same case. There it demanded strict compliance: no contractor named, notice invalid, no slip rule. Strict law for the landlord's paperwork, flexible equity for the tenant's rent, in one report.
Strict for landlords, flexible for tenants: the pattern
This isn't one odd case. Put it beside others.
A tenant's hardship can't waive arrears, but a landlord's kindness can. In TR0001367 (Waterford, 2026), a tenant asked for her arrears to be reduced because of her personal circumstances. The Tribunal said it "does not have any power to waive rent arrears on the grounds of personal circumstances". So the RTB itself can't write off a tenant's arrears out of compassion. But when the landlord does it voluntarily, the RTB holds him to it forever.
The formality only binds landlords. In TR0001404 (Tramore, 2026), on the landlord's evidence, the tenant agreed a EUR 125 rent increase by email, and they signed a new lease at the higher rent, a lease the tenant drafted herself. The Tribunal struck the whole increase out because no formal rent review notice had been served: the Act is "mandatory in this regard and gives the Tribunal no discretion whatsoever". Fifteen months of the increase, EUR 1,875, was knocked off what she owed him. To be fair, the increase was also over the 2% cap, so part of it could never have stood. But the Tribunal didn't trim it to the lawful amount; it struck all of it, on the formality alone.
Now put the two cases side by side. In Galway, the rent went down with no notice, no form and nothing in writing, and the Tribunal held the landlord to it. In Tramore, the rent went up by written agreement, in a signed lease, and the Tribunal threw it out for want of a notice. The Act's notice rule applies to a new rent whichever way it moves. The RTB enforces it only one way: when the change favours the tenant, informality is enough; when it favours the landlord, nothing short of the prescribed notice will do.
A tenant's conduct isn't agreement; a landlord's is. In https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001584 (TR0001584) (Harold's Cross, 2026), tenants paid an increased rent for 18 months. The Tribunal held that "the fact of payment does not validate a notice that was not validly served, nor does it amount to an agreement to a new rent". Eighteen months of the tenant paying more was not agreement. A few months of the landlord accepting less was.
And the procedure counts one way. The Galway landlord lost his refurbishment notice partly for not naming a contractor or giving a detailed description. In TR0001367, another Tribunal held that the Act "does not mandate the identification of a contractor in the absence of one being employed" and does not require "contractor-level breakdowns", and cured two omitted statements under the slip rule. The Act says "the name of the contractor, if any". The Galway notice did also lack a professional's certificate and a planning statement, so its outcome can be squared, but the standard applied to the rest of it can't.
Taken one at a time, each of these can be explained. Taken together, every gap in the law is filled in the tenant's favour, and every formality is enforced against the landlord.
In fairness
The Galway Tribunal gave a second reason for refusing the arrears: the landlord had no bank statements or rent account to prove the figure, and four months between mediation and hearing to find them. That's a fair point. But the main finding stands on its own. Even with perfect records, the claim would have failed, because he'd been kind and hadn't chased it.
The landlord's own evidence didn't help him either. He accepted there had been "some ambiguity", that he'd never told the tenant the balance was outstanding, and that he hadn't intended to chase it until the issue came up at mediation. That's exactly why the advice below matters.
My advice: don't be nice
I never thought I'd write that. But on the RTB's own reasoning, any flexibility you show a tenant can be turned into a permanent concession. A month's grace becomes a rent reduction. Patience becomes a gift. So the safe course is the one nobody wants: enforce the lease as written, from day one. Rent due on the date it's due. Arrears letters when arrears arise.
If you still choose to help someone through a bad patch, and plenty of us will, protect yourself.
You have identified some decisions where - perhaps from my naive point of view - I suggest there would be a case to take to the high court on a point of law. But of course for a couple of thousand it isn't typically worth the legal costs.
Incidentally, I had a session with AI where I asked it to tell me about recent cases where RTB Tribunal decisions were challenged in the High Court. It brought me through: O'Sheehan v RTB [2024] IEHC 409, Pszonka v RTB [2025] IEHC 291, Ó Laoire v RTB [2025] IEHC 384, Alsaleh v RTB [2025] IEHC 702, Argutinski v RTB [2026] IEHC 225, and Friedman v RTB [2026] IEHC 442.
I don't want to quote the whole dialogue here, however this was ChatGPT's summary:
It didn't mention failing to follow its own precedents (something which could be used as an argument in a normal court). However I'd suggest that would be grounds also.
Just curious here but if the tribunal decision again the widow was because the property became available for re-letting and she didn’t offer it back, apart from paying the tenant damages, could the investigations unit become involved?
Edit: just saw the list on rtb website.
Some large fines by the investigations unit - separate to the tenant award.
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LarryScott
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Presumably, they could.
They would probably want to pick a less sympathetic target than an elderly widow though, for their first prosecution.
From your link, if a family member moves in and then moves out again within 12 months of the tenant move-out date, then the landlord has to offer it back. I could see that generating some friction between a landlord of their family member, "Please just stay 1 more month".
Posts crossed.
Looks like they could investigate and fine the widow as well. Seems that breach can get a fine in addition to the tenant award so it makes a dispute situation very costly for a landlord if it’s decided they tried to circumvent the rules.
The list: