RTB Case studies

bipped said:
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?
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Yes, and for once the RTB's guidance is spot on. The page you found matches the Act: failure to offer a tenancy back after an own-use notice is "improper conduct" under Schedule 2, item (e), and the RTB "may, of its own volition" investigate it, with no complaint needed (s.148U(1)).

So an accommodation provider can be penalised twice for the same thing. First the Tribunal awards the tenant damages, nearly EUR 20,000 here. Then the RTB can come back on the same facts with a fixed payment notice, a prosecution, or a sanction of up to EUR 15,000 plus EUR 15,000 costs.

Nothing in the Act stops it; the only link between the two tracks (s.148T(2)(e)) just routes complaints that belong in a dispute.

LarryScott said:
They would probably want to pick a less sympathetic target than an elderly widow though, for their first prosecution.
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Agreed, I'd be very surprised. But the RTB is now complainant, investigator, sanctioner and publisher, and the same facts can be used against a landlord twice.

And worth flagging it only ever points one way. Schedule 2 is headed "Improper conduct in relation to a landlord". There is no list for tenants. No fixed payment notices, no investigations, no sanctions, whatever a tenant does.

The below are the type of cases for which there will be no sanction or investigation
Tribunals have upheld 7-day notices for a hammer assault (https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001493 (TR0001493)), a knife (https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001059 (TR0001059)), threats and intimidation (https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001421 (TR0001421)) and assault (https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001047 (TR0001047)). In none of them does the RTB act against the tenant itself. A valid 7-day notice doesn't remove anyone either. If the tenant stays put, it's the landlord who has to bring the case, wait for a hearing, and then go to court to enforce it, while the neighbours live with it.

Meanwhile the RTB's own neighbour disputes page tells neighbours they can take a case against the landlord for the tenant's behaviour, and that "Landlords can be ordered to make large payments to neighbours".

The tenant behaves badly; the landlord pays. The landlord makes a mistake; the landlord pays twice.
 
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stormy said:
the RTB is now complainant, investigator, sanctioner and publisher, and the same facts can be used against a landlord twice.
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Trying to understand the fixed penalty notices - if the rtb issues one (for the relevant breach) and the landlord pays it, is that the end of it as far as the improper conduct goes? Does the investigation unit only get involved if the landlord doesn’t pay and that’s what leads to a day in court plus a criminal record?
 
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stormy said:
In none of them does the RTB act against the tenant itself.
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No, it seems the supplier in every sector is viewed by the state as being in the stronger position so the consumer will be protected as much as possible. Always wondered why the rtb seemed so pro-tenant until R. Steen said their role is to regulate the sector and I had to rethink. I previously thought the rtb was set up purely to handle landlord-tenant disputes and take them out of the court system. Now I realise they wear two hats for separate roles (other posters probably know this very well - it takes me a while to connect the dots), their main role is to enforce the rules, protect consumers, oversee and supervise landlords, and issue fines or take legal action against a landlord who breaks the rules. Their other role is to act as a referee/ judge in a private tenancy /contract dispute, strictly apply the rules, decide on damages, and if either side refuses to comply with a decision, it’s then up to the courts to enforce it. (That’s a whole different process).

It seems the state views a loss of income as less serious than losing a home therefore tenants are fully safeguarded. A solo landlord is held to the same stringent standards as a huge corporation so the decision in the widow’s non-compliance case is not unusual. As the referee, they strictly applied the rules and the tenant /consumer was protected. It will be interesting to see if they issue a fine for the regulatory breach while wearing their other hat.
 
stormy said:
Meanwhile the RTB's own neighbour disputes page tells neighbours they can take a case against the landlord for the tenant's behaviour, and that "Landlords can be ordered to make large payments to neighbours".N
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Incredible, no onus on the tenant at all the behave properly. It is the landlord's job entirely to police their tenants' behaviour. Landlords must make sure that tenants behave properly.

Landlords must make sure tenants follow tenancy agreement rules, especially if they affect neighbours (for example, anti social behaviour). If a landlord fails to ensure a tenant follows the rules, the neighbour or third party can take a case against the landlord through the RTB.

Here also, nothing about the neighbours trying to resolve the issue with the tenant themselves, it is all on the landlord

The law says neighbours or third parties who have an issue with a tenant must first try to resolve the dispute with the landlord.

Now some anti-social behaviour will be easily resolved, like youngsters having parties. Stern words from the landlord and a threat of eviction will generally quieten things down. But most anti-social behaviour comes in two flavours

1. Thugish behaviour involving drugs and violence - how is the one property landlord supposed to deal with that.

2. Tenant and neighbour don't get on and start fights with each other. It is impossible for a landlord or indeed anyone else to stop or control that.

Yet the landlord is likely stuck with the misbehaving tenant who even with an eviction order can stay on for years while compensating possibly multiple neighbours for the tenant's behaviour
 
Blarney: a missing sentence in a 2021 rent review voids a 2024 arrears notice

TR0525-008744 (Keohane v Chanthima, Gleann na Ri, Tower, Blarney, Cork; heard August 2025)

The facts

The tenancy began in 2015. In October 2021 the landlord reviewed the rent from €875 to €899. On the evidence, the review was within the rent pressure zone cap, gave 90 days’ notice, listed three comparable properties, and still left the rent below market. The tenants paid the new rent for two and a half years without complaint.

In 2024 one of the tenants lost their job and the rent stopped. The landlord served a warning letter in October 2024 for €1,600, and a notice of termination in November when it wasn’t paid. By the Tribunal hearing the tenants owed over €7,000. The landlord told the Tribunal she had been ill and under treatment for the past year, was paying the mortgage without the rent, and needed to sell.

What went wrong
The tenants went to Threshold, who went back through the rent history. The 2021 rent review form left out the statement telling tenants they could refer a dispute to the RTB. That was the only defect. The landlord’s solicitor accepted it was an oversight and called it a technicality.

The Tribunal held that because the 2021 notice wasn’t in the prescribed form, the increase never had effect. The rent had legally stayed at EUR 875 all along. It added that it has ”no jurisdiction to apply a slip rule or to overlook a technical defect in respect of a rent review form in the same manner as it may with a notice of termination”.

That knocked on to the 2024 warning letter. Section 67(3) of the Residential Tenancies Act requires the tenant to be notified in writing ”that such amount of rent due as is specified in the notification has not been paid”. At EUR 875 a month, the arrears were €1,550, not €1,600. The letter overstated them by EUR 50, so the notice of termination was invalid.

And then €1 a month

The warning letter had also used a rent of €900, not €899. The Tribunal said that even if the 2021 review had been valid:

”On it’s own, this oversight would be sufficient grounds for a tenant to argue that the notice of termination was invalid.”​

That's it. A notice of termination for EUR 1,600 of unpaid rent is voidable because the letter rounded €899 up to €900.

What the landlord got
  • Her notice struck down, so she starts again with a fresh warning letter, more than a year after the first.
  • An order for €7,321 in arrears, paid at €600 a month over 13 months. That’s after deducting €744 of “overpaid” rent: the €24 increase the tenants had paid for 31 months, now refunded because of the missing sentence.
  • The Tribunal’s ”sympathy for the Landlord’s circumstances”.

The report holds itself to a lower standard

While voiding a notice over €50 and €1, the report:
  • Declares invalid ”the notice of termination served on the 28th November 2025". It was served in 2024.
  • Opens its reasons by describing ”the failure to serve an invalid rent review in 2021", which says the opposite of what it means.
  • Refers to ”two rent rents”, ”the error on the from” and ”Ms Colins”.

None of that affects its decision. Nor should a missing sentence on a rent review form that every party understood, and nobody challenged for two and a half years.

Why every landlord should read this

The trap reaches back years. Threshold’s written submission, quoted in the report, put it this way: where a rent review notice is served in the prescribed form, a dispute must be referred quickly, but ”no time limit is prescribed by law for referral of a dispute in respect of a rent review where notice is not served in the prescribed form”. The Tribunal declined to look at a 2017 review because more than six years had passed, but a defect in any review within that window can be used to unpick every arrears figure since.

So:
  • Dig out every rent review you’ve served in the last six years and check it against the prescribed form, word for word.
  • If one is defective, assume the rent never moved. Work out what the lawful rent is, and calculate any arrears from that figure, not the one the tenant has been paying.
  • Put the exact figure in any warning letter. Not rounded, not approximate. The RTB will deem it invalid if it is wrong by €1.
  • Serve a fresh, compliant review if you’re entitled to one, rather than relying on an old one.

The tenants here were in genuine difficulty, and the Tribunal was right to order a payment plan. But the result is that a landlord who was owed thousands, who had kept the rent below market for nine years, and who was ill and struggling with the mortgage, lost her notice over a sentence missing from a form three years earlier. She has to start again.
 
stormy said:
The trap reaches back years. Threshold’s written submission, quoted in the report, put it this way: where a rent review notice is served in the prescribed form, a dispute must be referred quickly, but ”no time limit is prescribed by law for referral of a dispute in respect of a rent review where notice is not served in the prescribed form”. The Tribunal declined to look at a 2017 review because more than six years had passed, but a defect in any review within that window can be used to unpick every arrears figure since.
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Incredible.

This is a situation where the landlord did everything right, kept the rent within the RPZ rules, followed all the procedures and genuinely needs this situation sorted out, yet this is the situation she is in.

I've heard that solicitors are really unwilling to take on this type of work. You can see why. I doubt that any other legal area or Tribunal carries on like this.
 
Student tenants film themselves destroying a house in Limerick here

Now the guards do seem to be involved, but the RTB will take zero interest. There is no such thing as a rogue tenant, only rogue landlords.
 
Greenbook said:
Student tenants film themselves destroying a house in Limerick here

Now the guards do seem to be involved, but the RTB will take zero interest. There is no such thing as a rogue tenant, only rogue landlords.
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The only hope for the landlord is that one or more of the parents signed as guarantor.

I don't understand the local councillor calling them "gentlemen". Round my way, we use a different term. By all accounts, "gentlewomen" were also involved in the destruction.
 
@stormy, in your research on the RTB Tribunal decisions, do you come across many instances of true "rogue landlords" - as the minister puts it (https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...cepts-no-responsibility.244716/post-2015665)?

The well-known one is the individual named in these IT articles https://www.irishtimes.com/tags/marc-godart/.

ChatGPT found for me a long list of RTB Tribunal decisions against this individual and his multiple companies which include Green Label Short Lets Ltd abd Green Label Property Investments Ltd.

So while rogue landlords certainly exist, I highly suspect the percentage of them contained in RTB adjudications against landlords is very small. All the cases you quote are technicalities without "bad intention" by the landlord.

The demonisation of "rogue landlords" is a time-tested political tactic to get the rabble on your side - blame the invisible enemy.
 
patfert1 said:
So while rogue landlords certainly exist, I highly suspect the percentage of them contained in RTB adjudications against landlords is very small. All the cases you quote are technicalities without "bad intention" by the landlord.
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I suspect that the genuine Marc Godart type 'rogue landlord' is very rare.

Also I think some 'rogueish' behaviour from landlords is just the landlord is at his wits end. No rent is being paid, the house is deteriorating, the neighbours are complaining, the mortgage arrears are piling up and yet the tenant is indulged with delays and spurious arguments are entertained. So the landlord takes the law into his own hands or retaliates in some way.

Also, the landlord may know that this eviction is going to take 3 years and will take a huge toll in stress and legal fees. He is better off just to force the tenant out and take the hit via the fine. I see this thinking a lot on the FB landlord groups.
 
Greenbook said:
Student tenants film themselves destroying a house in Limerick here

Now the guards do seem to be involved, but the RTB will take zero interest. There is no such thing as a rogue tenant, only rogue landlords.
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Actually the RTB will be only delighted to give the landlord a criminal record and a princely sum to any neighbor who wants to throw their hat into the them too.
 
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JamieB_ said:
Actually the RTB will be only delighted to give the landlord a criminal record and a princely sum to any neighbor who wants to throw their hate into the them too.
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Yes, I hadn't thought of that.

It is all the landlord's fault, he didn't control his tenants properly. So the landlord could end up with a destroyed house and compensation payments to neighbours. Nothing happens the tenants.
 
Report here from Waterford

Tenant had significant arrears and a long history of difficulties paying the rent. The landlord got an eviction order and the tenant was evicted by the sheriff. The whole process took three years. The Tribunal seems to have accepted that the tenant breached her obligations as to standards and maintenance and that €27k of damage was done to the property.

From the article.

A report from the security company noted that every room had to be cleared of domestic waste and furniture, all flooring removed and disposed of, internal walls deep-cleaned and repainted, and live wiring running to a back garden shed dismantled for safety reasons after its roof collapsed.
On-site caretaker John Nolan testified that he was present during the eviction and observed the apartment in a “terrible state”, describing it as full of dog faeces, filthy, covered in mould,

The tenant's belongings were dumped. Despite the terrible state of the property and the rent arrears, she claimed €15k in compensation for this. She lost the case. She was asked to call and collect them, didn't do so, so the landlord was quite entitled to dump them after a month.

However, the landlord is Focus Ireland - a public landlord so 'good'. I wonder if it had been a private landlord facing this would some flaw have been spotted so that some compensation was due - dumping after a month was too short a period, she wasn't told clearly enough that her belongings would be dumped, there were no pictures from the start of the tenancy so there was no evidence she had breached her obligations etc.

It is important to note that it still took Focus Ireland with all its staff and advisors three years to get her out.
 
Greenbook said:
I wonder if it had been a private landlord facing this would some flaw have been spotted so that some compensation was due
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Probably. In TR0001220, also in Waterford, a private landlord kept a EUR 1,500 deposit for dog damage and cleaning, and was ordered to hand back all of it. He had end-of-tenancy photos and a witness, but no move-in photos, so he couldn’t prove the damage happened during the tenancy.

On the cases you cited, from the report: tenant ordered out within 14 days in January 2023, actually removed in June 2025, with arrears up from EUR 9,593 to EUR 21,469 plus about EUR 6,250 of damage. None of it was awarded and it’s unlikely ever to be recovered. Then the landlord had to defend her EUR 15,000 claim at a full Tribunal.

And this was an AHB with a housing manager, a caretaker, a support worker and an office on site, and it still took three years. A small landlord with one flat and a mortgage goes through the same process with none of that support, and pays for it himself.
 
Pauley said:
It's truly incredible that what at the time was a settled matter between tenant and landlord can be dug up years later and deemed invalid on a minor technicality.
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Same issue, different shape in the below case:


Rent reviews from 2019 to 2026: did yours say whether the comparables were houses or flats?

TR0823-006562 (Cruise Park, Dublin 15; heard December 2023)

A landlord’s November 2021 rent review listed three comparable properties, each with its address and asking rent from Daft. The Tribunal held the review invalid on two grounds.

The first was that the comparables weren’t described:

”It was not stated whether the properties were apartments or houses.”​

The Act required the three comparables to be of ”a similar size, type and character” to the rented dwelling, and the 2019 prescribed form asked the landlord to ”briefly specify the associated dwelling”. The landlord’s agent told the Tribunal that a Geowox valuation report, with the details of each comparable, was sent to the tenants with the review. If so, the tenants had everything they needed. But the report wasn’t in the case files, and the notice didn’t mention an attachment, so the Tribunal said it ”cannot be satisfied that this document was served”. A document missing from the RTB’s file, not missing from the tenants’ post, sank the comparables.

The second was that the notice didn’t show how the new rent was calculated. It did include the inflation (HICP) figures. What was missing was the one-line sum: old rent multiplied by the new HICP figure, divided by the old HICP figure. Anyone with the two numbers on the form could work it out in seconds. But the formula wasn’t written down, so the review failed.

The increase fell with the review, and the landlord was ordered to repay EUR 1,490.97, covering the increase paid since March 2022.

The increase itself was within the law

The Tribunal treated the rent as EUR 1,940.50 a month (rent, service charge and parking together). The review raised it to EUR 2,018, an increase of about 4%. At the time, the cap in a rent pressure zone was inflation, and HICP had risen 5.1% between October 2020, when the rent was set, and October 2021. So on the Tribunal’s own figure for the rent, the increase was inside the legal limit.

The landlord gave notice, gave the date, used the form, listed three real comparables that anyone could look up, included the inflation figures, and, on its agent’s evidence, sent a report describing each comparable. In substance it complied. The Tribunal never asked whether the amount was lawful; it struck the review out on form alone.

The comparables were real properties with real rents. But the form didn’t say “house” or “apartment”, and the formula wasn’t written out, so the increase was never valid.
 
The Waterford case shows the type of tenant you are dealing with these days - €10k nearly of arrears, €27k of damage and yet she still skipped off to the RTB making what must be a spurious claim for €15k damages.

All this is facilitated and encouraged by the RTB and all this is being paid for by the taxpayer as well.
 
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