RTB Case studies

Violet Ann Wynne (former SF TD) in trouble with a landlord yet again. Another eviction order case. The report is here

This I think is her third time. She and her family were housed by an AHB. She was evicted from there due to rent arrears.

She was then involved in the astonishing story of carrying out works on the house she was renting and practically destroying it.

She owes €18,000 of rent arrears up to January 2026, so presumably more now, to her current landlord. This is the usual saga, case is adjourned by the judge so that herself and her ex-partner can get legal representation.

She seems to have found alternative accommodation. Some landlords obviously don't do much due diligence on prospective tenants.
 
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Another one: the warning notice was with the RTB, but not “before the Tribunal”

TR0725-008934 (Ballyconnell). The tenants stopped paying in February 2025. The agent sent the 28-day warning notice to the tenants and to the RTB on 4 February, then served a notice of termination on 6 March. The tenants didn’t turn up to the hearing.

The notice was struck out on three grounds, all raised by the Tribunal itself:
  • The warning notice wasn’t in the case files. The agent had it and read it out at the hearing, under affirmation. It was still held “not properly before the Tribunal”.
  • The EUR 1,910 arrears figure was the landlord’s, not the agent’s, so it was “unverified”. The tenant had never disputed it.
  • There was no evidence the RTB got its copy “on the same day” as the tenants.

On the third point: the RTB was sent the warning notice. Whether it arrived, and when, is in the RTB’s own files. Why didn’t the RTB check its own records before holding it against the landlord?

And “the same day” isn’t the test. The Tribunal quoted https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/2004/act/27/section/67/revised/en/html (s.67(3)) itself: the 28 days run from receipt by the tenant or the Board,

”whichever occurs later”​

Then it faulted the landlord for not proving same-day service, a requirement the section it had just quoted doesn’t contain.

The Tribunal then awarded the arrears from February to June on the same agent’s evidence, and rejected the EUR 1,910 owed before that (again the tenant never disputed that they owed this). Is that money now gone for good?

Absent tenants, every defect found for them by the Tribunal, and the landlord’s evidence sitting in the RTB’s own files unchecked. Is this just carelessness, or more of the same anti-landlord bias?


Case link: https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0725-008934
 
stormy said:
Absent tenants, every defect found for them by the Tribunal, and the landlord’s evidence sitting in the RTB’s own files unchecked. Is this just carelessness, or more of the same anti-landlord bias?
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It is becoming practically impossible to evict tenant for non-payment of rent. The Tribunal will find something, possibly spurious - it's not in RTB's file even though no one disputes that it was served on the RTB - to keep the tenant in the house.

Meanwhile, the Minister's sole focus is even more money for the RTB to fight 'Rogue Landlords'
 
Another articles here this time involving Robert Troy TD.

The tenant complained that there were problems with the house, some of these sound quite serious. However, the Tribunal accepted that the landlord hadn't been informed of some of the issues and that repairs had been carried out in a timely manner where the landlord was informed. The tenant still got €500 in compensation as she couldn't fully enjoy 'peaceful occupation' of the dwelling. That is fine, but compare it to the treatment of the landlord in @stormy's TR0725-008934 (Ballyconnell) - rent arrears, warning notices sent, tenants don't turn up, but everything has to be redone because the warning letter isn't on the file.
 
Greenbook said:
it's not in RTB's file even though no one disputes that it was served on the RTB
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There are two files, and the landlord has to get the document into both. The warning notice went to the tenants and to the RTB, as s.67(3) requires. The RTB had it. The agent read it out under affirmation. It failed because it wasn't in the Tribunal's case file, which is built from what the parties submit, not from the RTB's own records.

So perfect paperwork isn't enough. A year later you must perfectly prove every step again: the notice, proof it reached the tenant, proof it reached the RTB, and the arithmetic behind every figure. Against nobody. The tenants didn't turn up, and the Tribunal raised all three defects itself. Same in https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001367 (TR0001367) (Waterford, warning letter read out, not on file, notice invalid).
Compare what a tenant has to prove:
  • https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001393 (TR0001393) (Carlow): tenants absent. The Tribunal audited the accounts itself, found a EUR 10 discrepancy nobody had raised, and voided the notice.
  • TR0522-005471 (Blackrock): EUR 5,150 refunded to a tenant who never asked for it.
  • TR0001653 (Troy, Mullingar): the Tribunal couldn't decide how long the oven was broken, and awarded EUR 500 anyway.
A tenant who stays at home has his defects found for him. A landlord who served everything correctly loses because a copy the RTB already had wasn't in the Tribunal folder. The burden runs one way.
 
Any reasonable system would give a party 24 hours after the hearing to lodge a document everyone agrees exists. The Tribunal has that power. It can adjourn, or direct a party to furnish a document within a few days, and in TR0001757 (Kinsealy) evidence lodged the evening before the hearing was put to the parties for consent. In Ballyconnell (case above) the agent had the warning notice in his hand and read it into the record under affirmation. Nobody asked him to send it in. The notice was struck down instead. The discretion exists; it just wasn't used for the landlord.
 
Incredible stuff.

I'm sure the individual Tribunals see these as wins. The tenant says in the house a while longer.

They don't see the bigger picture - that potential landlords hear how 100% pro tenant the RTB is. They realise that it will take years to sort out a non-paying or anti-social tenant even if everything is done correctly and decide to leave or not to invest.
 
"The tribunal deemed the rent review invalid, saying McInerney did not include “adequate comparables” to support the rent sought, though it accepted it was difficult to get “exact comparables” due to the lack of properties being advertised." A case on invalidity of rent review as comparison not adequate. I don't know anything about that case in particular but one of the comparison was in a different village. I don't know if anyone in the tribunal actually looked at site like Daft recently to see that there is near to nothing advertised.
 
Clonmel has a population of nearly 20,000 for example, yet there are 7 properties to rent on Daft for Clonmel. Only one of these is a one bed, so if you are looking for one bed comparators you're gone. If you extend to Clonmel and surrounding areas, you get 11 hits, but only two 1 beds, one of which is an apartment, the second is a house, so still useless.

So you lose your case because of a requirement which is impossible to comply with.
 
Premos said:
"The tribunal deemed the rent review invalid, saying McInerney did not include “adequate comparables” to support the rent sought, though it accepted it was difficult to get “exact comparables” due to the lack of properties being advertised." A case on invalidity of rent review as comparison not adequate. I don't know anything about that case in particular but one of the comparison was in a different village. I don't know if anyone in the tribunal actually looked at site like Daft recently to see that there is near to nothing advertised.
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Plus what if the only comparable is an AHB or a rent controlled property. Rent will be nowhere near current market rent, but yet you have to compare to that rent.
 
Followed the RTB's advice, owed EUR 25,814, notice struck out anyway

TR0725-008907 (Citywest). A six-month fixed-term letting from 29 August 2024 at EUR 2,400 a month. The tenants paid November's rent in October 2024, and never paid again.

On 3 December the landlord served a notice of termination for a tenancy under six months, no reason needed, ending 3 March 2025. Why that notice? In her own words to the Tribunal, a person in the RTB told her she didn't need to give reasons in the first six months, and that the notice she was using was "the correct and lawful one".

By the hearing in October 2025 the tenants owed EUR 25,814.70. Her bank had written threatening repossession. The tenants refused her access to inspect, and didn't turn up to the hearing.

The Tribunal awarded the arrears, then struck out the notice. Because the letting was fixed-term, it held she couldn't end it without a reason during the term. She should have served a warning notice for the arrears instead. Every word of her evidence about the RTB's advice is recorded in the report, without comment.

Two things the Tribunal didn't address:
  • The fixed term ended on 28 February. The notice took effect on 3 March. A notice that takes effect after the term is over doesn't end the tenancy "during the fixed-term period" at all. Why wasn't that considered?
  • The tenants were in breach from November 2024 onwards. The notice failed only because the landlord picked the route the RTB told her to use.
She's now served a second notice, in June 2025, and is waiting for that one to be heard. She's back at the start, nearly a year and EUR 26,000 later.

And the report itself:
  • The order directs her to refund a "security deposit of EUR 600.00". The deposit, on the evidence, was EUR 2,400.
  • The determination is made under section 97, which is the adjudicator's power. A Tribunal determines under section 108(1).
  • The determination binds two people who appear nowhere else in the report.
  • The chairperson is "he" in one sentence and "she" in the next.
So the landlord is held to the strict letter of the Act for following the RTB's own advice. The RTB's binding order gets the deposit wrong by EUR 1,800 and cites the wrong section, and nothing happens. Who's checking the RTB?
 
stormy said:
TR0725-008907 (Citywest). A six-month fixed-term letting from 29 August 2024 at EUR 2,400 a month. The tenants paid November's rent in October 2024, and never paid again.
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Absolutely incredible. The tenant paid the deposit and first month's rent to get the keys. They obviously had no intention of paying any further rent after that once they were in. Yet they are encouraged and facilitated in this by the RTB.

I'd imagine that this type of behaviour is becoming increasingly common. It must be well known at this stage that you can get away with it.
 
Greenbook said:
Absolutely incredible. The tenant paid the deposit and first month’s rent to get the keys. They obviously had no intention of paying any further rent after that once they were in.
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Close. They paid three months, then nothing for nearly a year.

What I should have stressed is that, on the facts in the report itself, the notice looks to me like it was valid. I’d welcome @LarryScott or anyone else checking my reading.

The Tribunal relied on s.58(3), under which a fixed-term tenancy outside Part 4 can be ended by notice:

”only where there has been a failure by the party in relation to whom the notice is served to comply with any obligations of the tenancy”​

There had been. The rent due on 28 November was never paid, and the notice was served on 3 December. The condition in the section the Tribunal relied on was met on its own findings.

The Tribunal said she should have served a warning notice first. But the Act provides for what happens when a landlord ends a tenancy over a breach without the warning notice. s.66(1) applies the standard notice period where the tenancy is ended:

”by reason of such a failure but a condition in another section of this Chapter is required to be satisfied if the period of notice provided by that section is to apply and that condition is not satisfied.”​

The warning notice in s.67(3) is the condition for the shortened 28-day period, and nothing more. Without one, the landlord gives the full period. She did: 90 days.

And separately, the notice took effect on 3 March, after the fixed term ended on 28 February. It didn’t cut the fixed term short at all.

So:
  • The tenants had failed to pay rent before the notice was served, which is all s.58(3) requires.
  • She gave the full standard period, which s.66(1)(b) expressly applies where there’s no warning notice.
  • The notice took effect after the fixed term had ended.

The Tribunal addressed none of these. It found a fixed term, found no warning notice, and stopped.

If I’m right, this notice complied with the Act and was struck out anyway, with €25,814 owing, a repossession letter on the landlord’s table as she couldn't meet the mortgage payments, and tenants who didn’t turn up. It wouldn’t be careless drafting this time; it would be the law not applied as written, and always in the same direction.

@LarryScott , does that hold up?
 
stormy said:
@LarryScott , does that hold up?
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Dunno, looks like they are really trying to come up with a reason.

Their argument seems to be that the "ending of the tenancy" is when the NoT takes effect, it is when the NoT is issued.

Essentially, a six months fixed lease means that the tenant has a right to the full six months, so they are guaranteed to be upgraded to a full tenancy.

It shows how you really need to be careful as a landlord with giving fixed tenancies. Having a fixed duration can only harm the landlord. It blocks things that might have been permissible, but doesn't give any additional ability to evict when the fixed term ends.

If you use a lease that has a 1 year fixed term, you are giving up your right to evict in the first six months. It looks like with this ruling, you also lose your right to do a pre-six month eviction for six months fixed terms too.

Best plan would be to not agree to a fixed duration. If you must you need to set the fixed duration to at most five months. Though maybe even then they might rule that you only set it to five months to get around the six months rule.

stormy said:
The Tribunal relied on s.58(3), under which a fixed-term tenancy outside Part 4 can be ended by notice:

”only where there has been a failure by the party in relation to whom the notice is served to comply with any obligations of the tenancy”
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Hmm, on second thoughts, maybe they are saying you can't issue a NoT during a fixed tenancy unless the tenant breeches the terms.

If you want to issue a NoT during the fixed term, then you must actually issue it on that basis. So, the landlord would have to issue a rent arrears NoT, meaning a warning notice was required.

If they want to issue a NoT based on the fact that it was a pre-6 months tenancy, then they can't do that while the fixed tenancy is active. Thus they would have to wait until the six months fixed term expired to do it. At that point, it would be to late.

Effectively, To issue a pre-6 months NoT, no fixed term can be active and no more than 6 months can have passed.
 
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stormy said:
after the fixed term ended on 28 February.
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Curious about how the ‘first six months’ to gain P4 rights work? Is it based on days ie. 183 days? Presumably for the tenant it should be the same number of days used irrespective of the month or year (eg a leap year) the tenancy started so is that another trap where a landlord could easily be caught out?

In the FT case - lease was from 29/8/24 - 28/2/25 so 184 days in total. By that reckoning, it had rolled over into a P4 by one day. Is that how a Tribunal would look at it?

Also, does the ‘notice for no reason’ days have to end on the last day of the FT, ie, the tenant must have a fully completed notice period, so does the landlord need to count 90 days backwards from the final date of the FT and that’s the date plus a few extra days to issue the NoT?

So, 30/11/24 to 28/2/25 is 90 days - was that the latest date for the NoT to be issued and adding any extra days would take it back eg 7 days would be 23/11/24. Looks like the landlord added the extra days at the wrong side of the final date of the FT. Is that correct?
 
stormy said:
The Tribunal addressed none of these. It found a fixed term, found no warning notice, and stopped.
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The benign explanation may be the correct one here. The rules are so complex especially when you have one set - fixed term leases - interacting with a second set - rent arrears, that even the Tribunal itself doesn't understand them fully. Of course, the massive pro-tenant bias also comes into play.
 
LarryScott said:
Dunno, looks like they are really trying to come up with a reason.
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Indeed. I wonder if they overstepped the mark here.


LarryScott said:
If they want to issue a NoT based on the fact that it was a pre-6 months tenancy, then they can't do that while the fixed tenancy is active. Thus they would have to wait until the six months fixed term expired to do it. At that point, it would be to late.
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I think that's what they're saying. I think it's wrong, on four counts.

1. The Act says served, not ended. s.28(3) says Part 4 rights don't arise if:
"no notice of termination (giving the required period of notice) has been served in respect of the tenancy before the expiry of the period of 6 months"​
​
So the Act expressly provides for a notice served in the first six months that takes effect afterwards. That's exactly what she did.

2. The condition for ending a fixed term was met. s.58(3) allows it "only where there has been a failure" by the tenant. There had been: the November rent was never paid. Nothing in the section says the notice must be issued on that basis. The Tribunal added that requirement.

3. The Act provides for a breach without a warning notice. s.66(1)(b) applies the full standard period where the tenancy is ended for a breach but the condition for the shortened period isn't met. The warning notice is that condition, nothing more. She gave the full period.

4. The Tribunal applied the wrong part of the Act. Its reasons say a fixed term can be ended only on the s.34 grounds, sale or own occupation. But s.34 governs Part 4 tenancies, and a tenancy in its first six months isn't one. The analysis starts in the wrong chapter.

Your reading of the outcome is right: on this decision, a landlord with a six-month fixed term can never use the first-six-months right. Barred during the term, too late after it. A protection the Act gives every landlord vanishes because of a lease term, and nothing in the Act says so. That's not a lesson about fixed terms. It's a Tribunal rewriting the Act, with €25,814 owing and the landlord, already dealing with the stress of a bank repossession order due to the 25k arrears, sent back to the start.

Until someone takes one of these to the High Court, though, your advice stands: don't give fixed terms.

bipped said:
Curious about how the 'first six months' to gain P4 rights work? Is it based on days ie. 183 days?
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Months, not days. A month in an Act is a calendar month, so six months from 29 August 2024 runs to the end of 28 February 2025. It's not 183 or 184 days, and leap years don't come into it.

On the timing: the notice doesn't have to end within the six months, only be served within it. That's s.28(3): Part 4 doesn't arise if a valid notice was served "before the expiry of the period of 6 months". She served on 3 December, well inside it.

And she had no choice about the length. For a tenancy under six months old, the notice period was 90 days (s.66, Table 1). At the time, it was also the maximum, under s.65(4):
"If the duration of the tenancy concerned is less than 6 months, a period of notice of more than 90 days may not be given in respect of it."​
That cap was raised to 120 days only from 14 September 2026. So in December 2024 the notice had to be exactly 90 days, no more and no less. The period starts the day after service, so a notice served on 3 December ends on 3 March: exactly 90. Hers was exactly right.

Counting 90 days back from the end of the fixed term wouldn't have helped either. To end on 28 February, she'd have had to serve by 30 November. But a notice ending on 28 February ends the fixed term early, and on the Tribunal's own reasoning you can't do that without a breach. So the landlord was right to land the termination date after the term. The Tribunal held that against her too.

The one other trap is service. Under Argutinski, a posted notice is served when it arrives, not when it's posted, which would shift every count above by a day or two. Until this spring the RTB's own website told landlords the opposite, then the Tribunals started holding it against them. Nothing in this report suggests service was an issue, though, so I've taken 3 December as the date of service.


And it isn't a one-off. The pattern of reading the Act more harshly than its words, always against the landlord, keeps coming up:

  • The rent cap. The RTB's calculator rounds the 2% annual cap down to whole months. The Act doesn't. It also uses the wrong base month for rents set since 1 March, so a 12-month review measures only 10 or 11 months of inflation (calculator thread).
  • Market rent. The Act says market rent is set "having regard to" the rent register, along with the other terms of the tenancy. The RTB treats the register as the primary source, turning one factor into the answer.
  • Warning notices. https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/2004/act/27/section/67/revised/en/html (s.67(3)) runs the 28 days from whichever receipt is later, the tenant's or the RTB's. Tribunals have struck out notices for not sending both copies on the same day, a rule the section doesn't contain (https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001481 (TR0001481), https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0725-008934 (TR0725-008934)).
  • Evidence rules. In 008934 the Tribunal required the arrears figure to be "verified by bank statements, a rent schedule... or the evidence of the individual directly connected with the rent account". That rule isn't in the Act either. (Tenants did not dispute the amount owed)
  • Self-referrals. The Act lets either party refer a dispute about the validity of a notice. The RTB stopped accepting landlords' own referrals this year.
  • Paying before you can appeal. In https://rtb.ie/disputes/dispute-outcomes-and-orders/adjudication-and-tribunal-orders/?_search=TR0001427 (TR0001427) the landlord was ordered to pay within 14 days. The order doesn't bind until the 21-day appeal window has passed.
Every one of these goes beyond what the Act says, and not one of them goes beyond it in the landlord's favour.

Until someone takes one of these to the High Court, though, your advice stands: don't give fixed terms.
 
I'm not sure exactly what happened here because it is behind a paywall.

I gather that a Fianna Fail Councillor lost a case taken against her by a tenant. However, she only found out she lost the case when she saw it reported in the Clare Champion. If this is correct, was the RTB being sloppy or was the paper tipped off in advance.
 
Greenbook said:
If this is correct, was the RTB being sloppy or was the paper tipped off in advance.
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Almost certainly the former, and no tip-off was needed. The RTB uploaded the report to its website around 9 October. The Irish Times ran it on 12 October, political angle attached. The Clare Champion followed yesterday, reporting that she learned the outcome from the press. We covered the case and the Irish Times piece earlier:

stormy said:
TR0001627 - Milinski v McInerney (Doonbeg, Co. Clare, non-RPZ at the time)
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stormy said:
The Irish Times on Doonbeg
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As the Champion is behind a paywall, I'm going on the headline and the intro. If anyone has the full piece, please add to this.

Dates
Take the headline at face value:
  • 16 June 2026: Tribunal hearing.
  • 2 September 2026: the Board makes its Determination Order, eleven weeks later.
  • About 9 October 2026: the RTB uploads the report to its website.
  • 12 October 2026: the Irish Times runs it.
  • 15 October 2026: her local paper reports she learned the outcome from the press.
Under s.123 an order binds 21 days after it is issued to the parties, and this one gives her 28 days from issue to refund EUR 5,100. If she hadn't received it by the time the Irish Times had, those clocks may not even have started. Meanwhile the RTB had published her name, her address and her tenants' names to the world, a national newspaper had told its readers she overcharged her tenants, and the Facebook comments under it had moved on to "pure greed" and "she should be sacked".

That's the second case this month where the RTB's own process failed a landlord. In TR0001757 (Kinsealy) the landlords were never told about the adjudication hearing, which went ahead without them, and the rehearing they were promised never happened.

This is the body that voids a landlord's notice because they followed the RTB's guidance so the RTB's copy arrived a day late. It published a decision against a landlord before, apparently, telling her about it.

Misleading articles
A reminder of what the Irish Times did with this case: "ordered to pay" and "overcharged" for what was a refund; "more than doubled" without mentioning the house is a 5-bed detached with every bedroom ensuite, let at EUR 650 since 2019; the tenant's "EUR 700 to EUR 1,000" reported, but not his own evidence that the RTB index puts comparable existing tenancies at EUR 950 to EUR 1,250, nor her evidence that Daft put a 5-bed in the area at EUR 1,600; and an own-use notice, upheld because her parents had died and the family home went to her brother, described as an "eviction notice".

The Champion's intro goes further. It says the Tribunal "determined the review did not represent market rent for the dwelling". It determined no such thing. It never examined the market. The review failed because one of three comparables was an apartment. The Irish Times at least used the Tribunal's own word, "unlawful". The Champion invented a finding that isn't in the report, and tagged the article "fine". It was a refund.

The RTB's own paperwork
And the document both papers are working from has a defect of exactly the kind that sinks landlords. The tribunal report records in its agreed facts (item 4), and in the landlord's evidence, that the rent review notice was served on 3 March 2025. The Tribunal's determination at the end of the same report says 5 March 2025. The Board's Determination Order, made on 2 September and the legally operative document, also says 5 March 2025.

Same case, same document, two dates for the notice that the whole case turns on. Paragraph 1 of the order, the one that declares her rent review invalid and underpins the EUR 5,100 refund, refers to a notice served on a date on which, on the Board's own findings, no notice was served. A landlord whose notice gave one date in the body and another in the heading would be told the inconsistency was fatal. The RTB's order carries exactly that inconsistency, and nobody at the Board noticed in the eleven weeks between the hearing and signing it.

Whether an order that misdescribes the very notice it voids is itself open to challenge is a question nobody has asked, because nobody has noticed. Two newspapers reported this case. Neither spotted that the order they were reporting from contradicts the findings it rests on, and neither asked how a landlord came to read about her own case in the press before the order reached her. The landlord's one-advert error made two headlines. The RTB's own error, in the operative order, made none.

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