RTB told landlords posting date = service date. The High Court says it doesn't. Accommodation providers set up to fail?

[stormy]

It's not complicated lol

@Gerard0 - while they use the verb furnish for rent setting in the legislation (and RTB uses the verb serve for same).

Isn't it correct they both use the verb serve for rent reviews? I.e. rent reviews must be served on the rent review date to both the RTB and the tenant.

I'm really not sure how this can be called non complicated.

 

[Greenbook]

That's a good spot. More misleading guidelines by the RTB so? They specifically say "Your landlord must serve this notice to both you and the Residential Tenancies Board at the start of the tenancy."

Yes, that is a very good spot by @Gerard0

But what on earth does furnish mean?

And yes, more misleading guidelines by the RTB. You'd never think that they had solicitors working for them or that they hire barristers.

'Start' used by the RTB may mean something different to 'commencement' used in the Act. Commencement is the official date of commencement ie. one point in time only. 'Start' may be a bit vaguer so if the lease had a commencement date, but the tenant moved in a couple of days earlier, I could probably use either as the 'start' to furnish the notice, but I'd be wrong because that is not what the Act says.

A morass over nothing really.

 

[LarryScott]

"furnish the tenant and the Board, in writing, with the following information at the commencement of the relevant tenancy, ...."

Ok, so "start of tenancy" on the RTB website is "commencement of the relevant tenancy" in the legislation.

Commencement presumably means the move-in date, or the date in the lease which says commencement will happen?

Furnish is a different word to serve, so it implicitly has a different meaning.

You have to furnish at the commencement of the tenancy. That could mean provide the information on, or before, the commencement date, rather than strictly on the commencement date itself.

There doesn't even seem to be an explicit requirement for them to be "furnished" on the same day to both the RTB and tenant.

 

[stormy]

There doesn't even seem to be an explicit requirement for them to be "furnished" on the same day to both the RTB and tenant.

But the RTB are explicit that a Rent Setting Notice is invalid if not sent the same day. Did they just make up this rule?

You must send a rent setting notice to your tenant and the RTB on the same day. If you do not send it to the RTB, the rent setting notice is invalid.

Additionally their form explicitly uses the word serve throughout. This is not just their guidelines, these are the forms to be used.

Additionally the form clearly states "Your landlord must serve this notice to both you and the Residential Tenancies Board at the start of the tenancy". My natural interpretation of this is the same day the tenancy commences. For other mandatory accommodation provider obligations such as registration, they are clear one month is allowed from tenancy start, but for the rent setting they offer no such grace period.

Can the RTB really just make up rules like this?

 

[LarryScott]

Additionally the form clearly states "Your landlord must serve this notice to both you and the Residential Tenancies Board at the start of the tenancy". My natural interpretation of this is the same day the tenancy commences.

The legislation does say "start of tenancy", without really defining it. Maybe somewhere else it says that means the same day as commencement.

There might a catch-all rule, like "all notices must be be served to the tenant and RTB on the same day" somewhere else in the Act.

Other notices have an exact day, so maybe they are just being consistent.

Even if there is a same day rule, there is no guarantee that the notice must be sent on the exact day of commencement.

Can the RTB really just make up rules like this?

Do you have to use their exact forms, or is that just that they, presumably, have all the right information?

They might just be using their role as regulator to define that "start" means a particular day. Maybe it is setting up for another High Court ruling that invalidates lots of NoTs.

Also, notice they don't define start of tenancy. They are strict that it must be the "start" of the tenancy, without defining it.

 

[stormy]

Update: the Argutinski problem is now playing out in live determinations - and the slip rule isn't saving anyone.

Following on from the thread above about Argutinski v RTB - the High Court ruling that a posted notice is served on the delivery date, not the posting date, which contradicted the RTB's own guidance.

A new Tribunal determination shows this is no longer theoretical.

TR0001618 (June 2026): a landlord served an own-occupation notice, posted it, and filed the copy with the RTB the same day he posted it - exactly as the RTB's longstanding guidance told him to. The Tribunal applied Argutinski and held the notice invalid: because the posted notice was deemed served on the tenant a day or more later (ordinary course of post), the RTB copy filed on the posting day was not "same day" as service. Notice void, under s.39A(1) and s.35(11).

So a landlord who did precisely what the RTB website told him to do lost his notice. That's the harm the original thread predicted, now landing in real cases.

And here's the part that should worry every landlord: the slip rule didn't save him. You'd think "filed the RTB copy a day early because the State's own guidance said to" is the textbook case for the remedial-notice provision (s.66(2A)) - an honest, non-material, guidance-induced slip. But the Tribunal treated the service failure as a standalone, independent ground of invalidity, and because the notice also failed on a second ground, the remedial route was never even engaged. The notice simply died.

In fairness, that second ground did for him anyway - the Tribunal wasn't satisfied he genuinely intended to move in, so he wasn't keeping the property regardless. But it doesn't blunt the point: the service/same-day-copy failure stands on its own as a ground of invalidity, and it's now killing notices in its own right.

And where a curative provision has been squarely tested, it's been refused. In the Swords driver's-licence case I posted about this morning, the tribunal considered the slip rule and declined to apply it; in the Rathgar case, an identical defect was cured. Same provision, opposite results. The cure exists - but whether it rescues you is a lottery. A landlord following official RTB guidance to the letter can still have his notice struck down, with no remedy, for a "defect" the State's own guidance caused.

As @Sarenco rightly raised on the original thread: Argutinski itself didn't rest solely on the service-date point (the notice there had other fatal flaws). But TR0001618 removes that comfort. It's clear from this case that the service-date/same-day-copy failure is set out as a standalone, independent ground of invalidity in its own right.

For a body about to gain powers to fine landlords for getting the rules wrong, it is remarkable that the RTB's own longstanding, published guidance has been setting accommodation providers up to fail - and that when they fail because of it, the cure is refused.

Notes:
Case here

"Finding 1:
The notice of termination dated 12 February 2024 is invalid, the Landlord not having established that a copy of the notice was served upon the Residential Tenancies Board on the same day as the notice was served upon the Tenant."

 

[Greenbook]

For a body about to gain powers to fine landlords for getting the rules wrong, it is remarkable that the RTB's own longstanding, published guidance has been setting accommodation providers up to fail - and that when they fail because of it, the cure is refused.

It is crazy, and not a peep from the RTB about this and nothing from the IPOA either.

Who would get involved in being a landlord. You are warned under pain of penalties and fines to follow the RTB instructions to the letter. Nothing but precise compliance will do. You do that and then the Tribunal turns around and says what you did is completely wrong and actually the Argutinski case applies.

Just wait until tenants who moved out under the previous RTB rules sue the landlord for compensation because the eviction was actually illegal. The same RTB Tribunal will be enthusiastically compensating.

On tenancy and landlord numbers showing a slight increase year on year, you have ask how many of those are overholding or overturned NoTs on a technicality situations and the landlord is actually desperate to exit and won't return.

 

[Colin4444]

Just reading the last few posts about certain words and their exact meanings when it comes to the RTB and law...
Seriously, are we actually that evolved when it has come to this, when did we abandon common sense and logic...

It is just such a convoluted mess, no one has any idea, easy for RTB to find a loophole base on a word to rule against the landlord - and if this has been setup like this, does this not go against the whole foundation of law?

I just cant get my head around how truly miserable the RTB are, how biased, unconstitutional, and how they are actually able to get away with it!

 

[Sarenco]

I think it’s worth noting that the Tribunal also stated the following:-

“Because the Tribunal also arrived at the finding set out at Finding 2 below, the notice is not otherwise in compliance with act and the issue of a remedial notice is not engaged”.

That suggests to me that the Tribunal may well have applied the slip rule if that was the only ground for finding the notice to be invalid.

However, the issue was moot due to the finding that, as at the date of service of the notice of termination, the landlord did not genuinely require the dwelling for his own occupation within meaning of the act.

 

[LarryScott]

the landlord did not genuinely require the dwelling for his own occupation within meaning of the act.

The tenant argued that he didn't really need the house, since he had another one only 15 mins away.

The threshold is not one of strict necessity. The Landlord is not required to show that he has nowhere else to live, and the fact that he resides in another property does not, of itself, defeat the ground.

At least they didn't interpret "require" to mean that they would otherwise be homeless.

It looks like it is not sufficient to simply decide that you want to move in. The landlord must take some active steps to make it happen.

They give the example that he didn't get his current house valued. It wasn't sufficient that he just looked up similar houses on Daft. He would have needed to get a valuation from an auctioneer.

His excuse that he was waiting until he got vacant possession is pretty reasonable.

 

[Greenbook]

At least they didn't interpret "require" to mean that they would otherwise be homeless.

That'll be the next line the Tribunal takes!

 

[stormy]

That suggests to me that the Tribunal may well have applied the slip rule if that was the only ground for finding the notice to be invalid.

Indeed, we will have to see when it comes up again. However, the cure was never really the main point. What 1618 does establish is that same-day service is now a standalone condition of validity, and that "same day" runs from when the tenant is deemed to receive a posted notice, not when it's posted.

Which brings me to rent reviews. Since 1 March 2026, a rent review notice must be served on the tenant and the RTB on the same day, or it's invalid. Same rule, same trap. And unlike a notice of termination, there's no remedial-notice mechanism for a rent review. Get the timing wrong and the notice is simply void. The increase doesn't happen, you start again with a fresh 90 days' notice, and the tenant may be able to recover anything paid under the invalid notice.

Any landlord who has posted a rent review since 1 March and lodged the RTB copy on the day of posting could be caught out. We now know a Tribunal authority says this is void, and no cure available.

 

[Sarenco]

Same day service has been a condition of validity since the moment the legislation to that effect was initiated. Nothing new in that regard.

Service never meant the date of posting. Again, nothing new here.

The fact that RTB guidance appeared to conflate the concepts of service and posting is a different issue.

 

[stormy]

The fact that RTB guidance appeared to conflate the concepts of service and posting is a different issue.

It's the issue this thread is about. Landlords don't read s.25 of the Interpretation Act. They read the RTB's website to find out how to comply with an Act that carries fines and, for some offences, incarceration. If the guidance conflated posting and service, then landlords who followed it served notices that are void on 1618's reasoning.

As of today, the RTB's official Notice of Rent Review form says: "You must send the notice to your tenant and the RTB on the same day. You can send it to your tenant by post or email." So a landlord following the form posts to the tenant and uploads to the RTB the same day. On 1618's reasoning, that notice is void, because the tenant is deemed to receive it a day or more after posting.

Meanwhile, the RTB's own guide to rent review notices (https://rtb.ie/renting/guide-to-rent-review-notices/) says a posted RTB copy must arrive on the same day the tenant receives the notice. Receipt, not sending. The RTB's form and the RTB's guidance currently contradict each other, on a point that decides whether the notice is valid.

Even the form itself uses both words: it tells you to "send" the rent review notice, then says the exemption notice in Part D must be "served" in the same manner. That's the posting/service conflation in a single document.

Form: https://rtb.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Notice-of-Rent-Review-Form_FINAL.pdf
Screenshot of form downloaded 10 Sep 2026, 22:55.

Guidance: https://rtb.ie/renting/guide-to-rent-review-notices/
Screenshot of guidance downloaded 10 Sep 2026, 22:55.

 

[LarryScott]

The fact that RTB guidance appeared to conflate the concepts of service and posting is a different issue.

I think it is reasonable to say that following the RTB's advice (i.e. from the ones running the adjudication) should be considered reasonable.

If the RTB have discretion, they shouldn't penalize people for following their own advice.

The most reasonable policy here would be to update their guidelines, but not penalize anyone for following the old advice in the past.

They may not have that option (or want to use it.) Maybe a court would override their decision. I think the slip rule could be easily used here to cover it.

 

[stormy]

I think it is reasonable to say that following the RTB's advice (i.e. from the ones running the adjudication) should be considered reasonable.

I would think so also. I would imagine the vast majority use the prescribed RTB forms.

They may not have that option (or want to use it.)

I don't think the slip rule can get there, for rent reviews at least. s.64A only applies to a notice of termination. There's no equivalent for rent review notices, and no remedial-notice procedure either.

Let's see when more cases come up to see how this plays out. It's xtraordinary the RTB guidance is still so muddled in this.

 

[Greenbook]

I think it is reasonable to say that following the RTB's advice (i.e. from the ones running the adjudication) should be considered reasonable.

That would be the reasonable answer to it.

Let's see when more cases come up to see how this plays out. It's xtraordinary the RTB guidance is still so muddled in this.

When you ending a tenancy on the RTB portal, you are warned that the NoT must be filed with them within 28 days of the documents being served on the tenant. The 28 day service rule was abolished in 2022.

With the increased penalties and prison terms, it is even more important that the RTB website is 100% accurate.

 

[Greenbook]

Another point is that we need to ask is why these rules are in place.

The first reason is to stop landlord from carrying on fake evictions - not really selling, just wants the tenant out. How all these fiddly rules about service achieve this is beyond me. The dishonest landlord will succeed if his forms are correct and served correctly (perhaps by accident, his solicitor insisted on a passport etc.), the honest landlord who is genuinely selling will get caught over some slip or other. But the service rules don't deal with the core issue at all, is this a genuine sale.

The second reason is statistics, they need to know how many NoTs are out there, the trajectory in rent increases. They don't need to get the copy documents for this on the exact same day as they are issued to the tenant though, within 7 days or 14 days would be fine. The same day rule is just to trap landlords. You don't, for example, have to register your tenancy on the day the tenant moves in? Why saying the tenancy is invalid because of that would blow back on the tenant and not the landlord. It is the landlord they want to impede.

Bottom line is all these rules are a long, long way from any substance now. They are nothing to do with whether the NoT is issued for genuine reasons or whether the rent increase is correctly set.

This will get worse when landlords try to end the year 6 tenancies at the end of their durations. A landlord wants to sell after 6 years but he now finds himself dragged through the RTB by a well advised tenant for 3 more years. The Tribunal strikes down the NoT due to some problem with service or box ticking and the landlord now has to wait a further 3 years to issue an NoT again. The landlord is trapped within a system he wants to exit for a further 6 years.

 

[stormy]

When you ending a tenancy on the RTB portal, you are warned that the NoT must be filed with them within 28 days of the documents being served on the tenant. The 28 day service rule was abolished in 2022.

Indeed. Yet more misleading and confusion from the RTB.

 

[Greenbook]

Indeed. Yet more misleading and confusion from the RTB.

Which I am begining to believe is deliberate at this stage.

Just too much of what they say is wrong or confusing.

And just try emailing or phoning them with even the simplest of questions. No answer, the wrong answer or a different answer if you ask again!