The 6-year rent reset - can you actually get to market rent?

[Premos]

The Tribunal held it was not of similar size, type and character, and said that even setting aside the missing notice and the missing third comparable

We are also talking about a time when very little is advertised. Currently, I am checking regularly on daft rental prices. I would struggle to find a 2 bedroom apartment to rent in my area in the past 4 weeks, 3 would just be impossible.
I must admit that in the past I picked up a one bedroom with a rent advertised higher than my review. I never thought this could be an issue.

 

[stormy]

So you are stuck with your 2026 rent until 2038. Is that correct?

That’s where the cases point. An invalid review never takes effect, anything collected above the old rent is refunded, and later 2% steps built on it fall too.

And it’s harder now. The prescribed form in force since 14 September 2026 has more ways to fail than any notice before it:

• Floor area in square metres, from the BER register or the Building Regulations. Put 45 instead of 45.5, or round the wrong way, and the comparables are measured against the wrong number.
• BER “where applicable”. Leave it blank is and the notice is wrong on its face?
• Three comparables now have to come from the RTB register, matched on floor area, bedrooms and BER. Doonbeg failed on “type” alone. There are now three more dimensions to get wrong.
• The calculator printout must be attached. Dundrum shows what happens when the workings are missing.
• The RTB copy must be served within 7 days. Between 1 March and 14 September it had to be the same day, and we know from Argutinski that posting isn’t service. Every review posted in that window with a same-day RTB copy is exposed on that point alone.

The form itself isn’t clean. The declaration in Part D cites “the Residential Tenancies Act 2024”. The tenant guidance is headed “Serving a Notice of Rent Setting” on a document called a Notice of Rent Review. The comparables table has nowhere to state the floor area, bedrooms or BER the form says the comparison is based on, so a landlord can’t show compliance even if he’s done it. If a landlord’s typo invalidates his notice, what does the RTB’s typo in the statutory form do?

I must admit that in the past I picked up a one bedroom with a rent advertised higher than my review. I never thought this could be an issue.

Doonbeg says it is. A advert for a lesser property was fatal because the property was the wrong type. Common sense would say it undersold her house; the Tribunal disregarded that. How many reviews around the country have one advert like yours in them? Every one of them is open until the day the rent is before a Tribunal for any reason.

 

[Greenbook]

That’s where the cases point. An invalid review never takes effect, anything collected above the old rent is refunded, and later 2% steps built on it fall too.

I hadn't thought it through fully so I hadn't seen that the 2% increases would fall as well.

What an investment to be in - you charge market rate, but you've a 50/50 chance of losing that and having to repay and compensate because the forms and procedures are so complex. Someone going through your filing line by line has a really good chance of spotting some flaw or other.

On the other hand, if market rents fall, yours will fall as well and there will be no paperwork whatsoever required there.

 

[Pauley]

..This is all madness. Small landlords cant fight this and the larger outfits seem powerless too.

Going by some of the cases above I'd imagine that fault could easily be found with the majority of rent increases over the past few years.

How long before every single historical rent increase including unchallenged ones are systematically examined for flaws and landlords are hauled in?

Maybe the only hope is that the bear gets poked enough that the larger outfits start exercising some influence over things and unwind some of these ridiculous regulations...

 

[Greenbook]

What a business to be in.

From a landlord's standpoint a successful rent challenge is a disaster and not only from the rent reduction/compensation point. The landlord can only sell with the tenant in situ, but there is now at a reduced rent, so the property is massively devalued. Then the prospective purchaser landlord will check the Tribunal reports and spot that there is a difficult tenant. That house can now only be sold at a huge reduction if at all. The tenant is unlikely to move of their own accord, they've a low rent. It is will also be much more difficult to push through a realistic increase at the next reset date, the tenant will challenge that again.

 

[LarryScott]

I wonder if the safest thing to do is to not actually increase the rent.

Actually, would writing a value that is to low in the NoT/arrears notice be valid?

Could you calculate the rent based on the original rent. For example, if the rent was 2000 per month for the first year and 2040 for the 2nd year.

After 2 years, that the tenant (should have) paid 48480 including the increase. However, if they fail to pay the rent for a month, then they will be in arrears.

Total owed: 48480
Total paid: 46440
Arrears: 2040

However, if the increase in invalid, then the balance is

Total owed: 48000
Total paid: 46440
Arrears: 1560

If you sent them an arrears notice with 1560 as the amount, would that be a valid notice in both cases? It would be weird to have the tenant argue that the increase was valid, so the arrears notice is invalid .

Would it be worth the landlord challenging their own increases every year? That would be similar to the advice from the IPOA that landlords should challenge their own NoTs.

 

[DannyBoyD]

landlord challenging their own increases

Suspect that is where we are.

If I have to give NOT in the future, I will 100% challenge my own notice.

 

[Premos]

If every LL needs to challenge their own rent review, the RTB will need to get even bigger

 

[DannyBoyD]

every LL needs to challenge their own rent review

I dont believe we have much choice.

We have complex and layered legislation, that legal professionals struggle to navigate.

A quango that gives invalid information.

Poor quality documents, legally binding determinations that are not even proof read, and makes up its own rules.

 

[Premos]

I dont believe we have much choice.

We have complex and layered legislation, that legal professionals struggle to navigate.

A quango that gives invalid information.

Poor quality documents, legally binding determinations that are not even proof read, and makes up its own rules.

I just think that it's just a waste of money and time for everyone involved.
It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't create any new supply. It doesn't stop rent from rising if one looks at the RTB rent register. It doesn't stop a LL who wants to sell from selling even if it's a few months later. And it certainly doesn't stop rogue actors.

 

[stormy]

If I have to give NOT in the future, I will 100% challenge my own notice.

If every LL needs to challenge their own rent review, the RTB will need to get even bigger

You may not be allowed to. The RTB stopped accepting self-referrals this year.

The Act hasn’t changed. s.76 lets either party refer “any matter relating to the tenancy”, and s.78 lists the validity of a notice of termination among the matters that can be referred. Landlords have used that for years to get a notice tested before acting on it, and the RTB has issued determination orders on exactly that basis.

During 2026 that stopped. Landlords who have tried it this year have had their referrals refused (I've heard from several sources, so happy thats policy now)

So the one tool a careful landlord had for catching a defective notice before it cost him a year has been withdrawn by the RTB, with no statutory basis as far as I can see.

If you sent them an arrears notice with 1560 as the amount, would that be a valid notice in both cases?

On the notice, yes, probably. On the money, you’d likely lose it.

Too high is fatal. TR0001393 (EUR 10 over) and TR0525-008744 (EUR 50 over, where the Tribunal added that EUR 1 a month “on its own” would have been enough to make the notice invalid).

Too low has been treated as harmless: TR0001549 and TR0001530, and in TR0001674 the tenant’s own representative accepted that the true figure was higher than the letter said. So your EUR 1,560 letter should survive whether the increase was valid or not.

The problem is the EUR 480 you left out. Nobody has tested that exact point, but TR0823-006554 (Galway) is close enough to worry about. A landlord let his tenant pay reduced rent during Covid, informally, as a kindness. When the tenant was back in work and paying in full, the landlord claimed the EUR 1,836 shortfall. The Tribunal refused it:

”The Applicant Landlord was not entitled to agree to one thing, have the Respondent Tenant act on foot of it, and then resile from that.”​

That was an informal arrangement never put in writing. A warning letter from you stating that the arrears are EUR 1,560 is a written statement of what you say is owed, and the tenant acts on it by paying that sum. By the same reasoning, the EUR 480 is gone. Note too that the Galway landlord was being decent, and that is what cost him.

Go the other way and the increase itself is the problem. A signed lease at the higher rent doesn’t cure a missing review notice (TR0001404), and 18 months of the tenant paying it doesn’t either (TR0001584).

So: state the full figure and risk the NOT; state the old figure and lose the money. It’s getting close to a rule that the rent can never safely be increased at all.

On challenging your own increases every year - as aove in my reply to @DannyBoyD . The RTB has stopped taking those referrals.

How long before every single historical rent increase including unchallenged ones are systematically examined for flaws and landlords are hauled in?

It’s already happening, just not in the way you’d expect. There’s no inspector going through old reviews. The audit happens when the landlord brings his own arrears or termination case. In TR0525-008744, a 2021 review that the tenants had paid for two and a half years without complaint was examined in a 2025 arrears case and struck down, taking the notice of termination. Every arrears case is a review of the entire rent history, and the landlord is the one who starts it.

The new forms are all up now, and they’re far more prescriptive than anything before them. Accommodation providers are being led to the slaughter, and what strikes me is how quiet it is. Nothing in the media. No complaint I can find from anyone with a voice.

The institutional landlords must know. They’ll have worked out that the RTB’s calculator uses the wrong base month for every rent set since 1 March, so it measures 10 or 11 months of inflation for every 12-month review, and that it rounds the 2% cap down to whole months, which the Act doesn’t do. Yet they’re standing by too. I’m not sure why.


EDIT: Issue with hyperlinks in initial post, so reposted without them
All cases can be found here:

Adjudication and Tribunal orders - Residential Tenancies Board

rtb.ie

 

[Pauley]

..Wow the weeds we've gotten into over what should have been relatively straightforward arrangements/transactions/agreements! "Section this, rule that, copy this on that date but not on another date, attach this, post that - or maybe email it - or maybe not depending on what it is". Truly mind boggling!

There's very little hope for the rental market. Any newcomers seem to be walking in "eyes wide shut"...

 

[LarryScott]

So the one tool a careful landlord had for catching a defective notice before it cost him a year has been withdrawn by the RTB, with no statutory basis as far as I can see.

"Someone" should test that. Presumably, a landlord who was refused could appeal to the court on the basis of a point of law.

It is also interesting that agents could be making massive mistakes for years (and being paid for it), and then when a NoT is sent, it only becomes apparent that there is a problem.

 

[Fibo49]

It is also interesting that agents could be making massive mistakes for years (and being paid for it), and then when a NoT is sent, it only becomes apparent that there is a problem

Can you then sue your agent?
As you are paying them to do this for you, if they do it wrong surely they become liable?

 

[JamieB_]

There's very little hope for the rental market. Any newcomers seem to be walking in "eyes wide shut"...

Its truly mind boggling to me that anybody would even risk it at this point. Its like gambling all your life savings in Las Vegas at this point. Really has to be something wrong with anybody remaining in this business.

 

[JamieB_]

Can you then sue your agent?
As you are paying them to do this for you, if they do it wrong surely they become liable?

It would be very interesting to see someone bring an agent to task in the courts on this alright. Agents giving people totally incorrect advice regarding leases and rules on a daily basis and they just get to walk away when when they took thousands from a landlord to do a job. They are supposed to put a tenant that they vet and select carefully and then manage both the property and the tenant, and yet when things go wrong they walk away and keep the money for the job they didnt do and also cost the landlord a fortune as well as untold stress and hassle.

 

[stormy]

Any newcomers seem to be walking in "eyes wide shut"...

Barristers can’t agree on what the rules mean. Tribunals reach opposite answers on the same point. Paid agents get it wrong for years without anyone noticing. And the regulator’s own guidance turns out to be wrong. Small landlords basically have the RTB’s website, written by the body that will later strike out their notice for following it.

Can you then sue your agent?

I would suspect it would fail. They'll be able to say they fulfilled their duty of care by following the RTBs guidance / taking reasonable steps. As a reminder, until this spring the RTB's website told landlords to send the notice to the tenant and the RTB "on the same day you send it" (13 March version). Then the High Court said in Argutinski that a posted notice isn't served until it lands, so the RTB copy went out early and the notice is void.

How a landlord can end a tenancy - Residential Tenancies Board

web.archive.org

The RTB quietly changed "send" to "serve" (20 May version), no announcement, as if it had always said that. In TR0001481 the Tribunal accepted the landlord had "probably followed the RTB's own published guidance" and struck his notice out anyway.

How a landlord can end a tenancy - Residential Tenancies Board

web.archive.org

You would also have to prove the loss: the months of delay, the costs, the rent you couldn't recover. The arrears themselves are still the tenant's debt, not clear you can prove loss against the agent for money the tenant owed you. And in any case, typical agency agreements have any liability capped at a year's fees.

Which says something in itself. The same RTB guidance that would defeat a claim against an agent was no defense for the landlord. A professional who followed it can escape liability; the landlord who paid him still loses his notice.

"Someone" should test that. Presumably, a landlord who was refused could appeal to the court on the basis of a point of law.

Not obvious how you'd go about it. The appeal on a point of law is from a Tribunal determination, and a refusal to accept a dispute isn't a determination. If RTB say no, what can you do?

 

[Greenbook]

So the one tool a careful landlord had for catching a defective notice before it cost him a year has been withdrawn by the RTB, with no statutory basis as far as I can see.

Yes, the RTB making up its own anti-landlord rules yet again and, as you say, no statutory basis.

So: state the full figure and risk the NOT; state the old figure and lose the money. It’s getting close to a rule that the rent can never safely be increased at all.

Likely that is the plan, especially at year 6.

Not obvious how you'd go about it. The appeal on a point of law is from a Tribunal determination, and a refusal to accept a dispute isn't a determination. If RTB say no, what can you do?

Not a lawyer, but I think a judicial review to the High Court on the basis that the RTB is exceeding its powers by not following what the Act clearly says. What ordinary landlord has the money for a judicial review though? They are depending on that. The Funds are the only ones who could fund such a case and they have expert lawyers preparing their documents, so no need for them to get Tribunal sign off.

Even if a Fund did take a case and win, the RTB would just get the law changed so that landlords can't challenge their own rent reviews or NoTs going forward.

 

[stormy]

TR0001627 - Milinski v McInerney (Doonbeg, Co. Clare, non-RPZ at the time)

The Irish Times on Doonbeg
The Irish Times has TR0001627 this morning. To be fair to the reporter, the body of the piece gives her side: the Kilkee comparable, the difficulty finding adverts in a village of 300, her parents' deaths, and the own-use notice being upheld. But look at what the headline and the selection do with it.

• "Ordered to pay EUR 5,000" and "overcharged rent". It's a refund of the difference the tenants paid for six months under a defective notice. No one found the rent was too high.
• "More than doubled" is in the first line. That the house is a 5-bed detached with an ensuite in every bedroom, let at EUR 650 since 2019, is nowhere in the article. The increase only reads as a doubling because the starting rent was so far below the market.
• The tenant's claim that similar houses let for "EUR 700 to EUR 1,000" is reported. His own evidence that the RTB index now shows EUR 950 to EUR 1,250 for existing tenancies is not. Nor is her evidence that Daft put a 5-bed in the area at EUR 1,600, nor that the 2 bed apartment the Tribunal rejected was letting at EUR 1,400.
• "Unlawful" is the Tribunal's word, and the article is entitled to use it. But read what it rests on: one of three comparables was an apartment rather than a house. The Tribunal never examined whether EUR 1,500 exceeded the market. It didn't need to - they could strike it out on a technicality.
• Her party, her general election result, her shop, the White House and Donald Trump all make the piece. The 2019 rent on a 5-bed, 5-ensuite house doesn't.

So a landlord who lost a rent review on one advert, refunded the difference, and had her notice to go home upheld, is in a national newspaper as having overcharged her tenants. Read the report and then read the headline. That gap is the story.

If this is what the Minister means by a rogue landlord, the RTB's new enforcement budget will be spent hunting down people who undercharged for six years and then used one wrong advert.

 

[Premos]

Looking at that case, I tried to see how easy it would be for someone to find today a comparison in my area, for a 2 bedroom apartment. In the small towns surrounding mine (5 towns) with a population of more than 64k (north Dublin), 5 ads today and 0 for a 5 bedroom house. So I can imagine that finding another 5 bedrooms house in a more remote would be close to impossible.