RTB Case studies

Apologies if I’m in the wrong thread but has anyone posted a draft tenancy agreement that protects the landlord from all of these RTB landmines or am I fantasising?
 
@Dave Byrne

It looks as though there is no certainty of contract available to an Irish landlord because:

a) the way the Act as written means the agreed rent is essentially just a placeholder suggestion until the RTB determine it counts as "market rent"
b) as @stormy has demonstrated that the RTB appears to make and enforce arbitrary and capricious decisions to the detriment of the landlord

The logical market response would be for landlords to 'self-insure' against the additional risk of that environment by setting, and only being willing to agree to, a significantly higher rent which would compensate for the additional risk being taken.

Note that the Tenancies Act enacted in March requires the market rent to 'have regard to' the terms of the contract. A new contract not only transfers property rights l(ike the right to vacant possession for a sale) away from the owner, but the reality of all its terms must be viewed and valued in the context of the likely behaviour of the RTB.

Your answer then is to only agree to create a lease at a rent level which adequately compensates you for what you view as "landmines".
Unfortunately the RTB is also in control of what rent you and your prospective tenant are allowed to agree to - and you circle back to the fact that any rent you agree on is just an aspirational placeholder until RTB Enforcement gets round to considering it.

Without drifting into the realm of financial advice, it would not be surprising if a competent financial adviser suggested you find an alternative investment.
 
TR0001763 - tenant reimbursed EUR 2,040 without invoices. Case published on RTB website yesterday.

The Act requires the tenant to vouch his expenses, and the Tribunal waived it.

Landlords lose for want of receipts the Act doesn't require. That is a double standard.

The tenants withheld rent and claimed EUR 2,340 for repairs they said they paid for between 2020 and 2025. The Act required them to vouch those expenses. The landlord pointed out at the hearing that the only receipt produced was for a EUR 300 mattress. The tenants still produced nothing: the report records that they "had not uploaded their invoices to the case files". The Tribunal awarded them EUR 2,040 anyway, as "the balancing amount", and cancelled the arrears.

The tenant's right under the Act is conditional on vouching:
reimburse the tenant in respect of all reasonable and vouched for expenses (s.12(1)(g) RTA 2004)​
​
The landlord's deduction for damage is measured by what reasonable remedial steps would cost, not by money already spent:
the costs that would be incurred by the landlord, were he or she to take them (s.12(4)(a)(ii) RTA 2004)​
​
Now look at what happens to landlords without receipts:
  • TR0001641 (Douglas): EUR 100 to clear a blocked sink and EUR 60 to dump beds the tenant left behind were both refused for want of a receipt. The landlord's time removing adhesive hooks the tenant admitted leaving was refused because "no expense has been incurred".
  • Dunmore East (Bergin v Hobbs, reported in Waterford Live, September 2026): the landlord said he paid EUR 90 to fix a forced bedroom door, EUR 300 for a stained mat and EUR 200 to steam-clean beds and furnishings. With no start-of-tenancy photos and no receipts, the full EUR 1,500 deposit was ordered back.
  • TR0001085 (Portlaoise): the damage claim failed because the remedial invoice came from a firm owned by one of the landlords and so was "not entirely objective".
  • TR0001646 (Dublin 1): a EUR 400 deduction for utilities was refused because the bills hadn't been produced and the apportionment hadn't been worked out.
  • TR0725-008934 (Ballyconnell): the tenants didn't attend, and the agent said the EUR 1,910 owed at the start of February 2025 had never been disputed. The Tribunal refused it anyway because there were no bank statements or rent schedule and the agent had the figure from the landlord. That one point lost the landlord the EUR 1,910, the warning notice and the notice of termination.
  • TR0001467: with no inventory, no dated photos and no verified invoices, the landlord recovered nothing for damage.
Tenants do sometimes lose for want of proof (TR0001455, TR0001722). But in TR0001763 the Act itself required the tenants to vouch, the landlord asked for the receipts, and the tenants couldn't produce them. They recovered EUR 2,040 anyway.



Cases cited
 
patfert1 said:
It seems there would be grounds to appeal this to the high court on a point of law. But the legal costs would easily exceed the EUR 2,040.
Click to expand...
Exactly and the Tribunal knows this.

Only the Reits and Funds could afford High Court costs and the Tribunal is presumably aware of this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top