Landlord query

SteM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926236#Comment_121926236

What about the solicitors that the OP spoke to? Should the OP trust the opinion of someone in the internet over solicitors?

saggy

Yes I do have it in writing from Threshold

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926521#Comment_121926521

Of course not, but there must be a reason why the op chose to ask it in the first place.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926525#Comment_121926525

Which will be of little benefit if the advice is wrong, they will not pay your fine.

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926521#Comment_121926521

Where did I mention solicitors?

Be fair before quoting with rhetorical questions

SteM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926589#Comment_121926589

The OP did and I did but for some reason you decided to only pick one part of my reply to comment on which was the RTB.

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926770#Comment_121926770

What's wrong with doing that ? I don't have to address your full post. You are just being silly now.

combat14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924816#Comment_121924816

on top of the 20k you may have to reaccomodate the tenant as they may be denied there due notice

combat14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926193#Comment_121926193

does your son own the house?

saggy

No I own the property

saggy

I did speak with solicitors even the landlord association but nobody seems to know the answer

HarryHeart

As you have to re-register a property each year with PRTB. Did you register them a tenants this year? If you did, you will have to treat them a tenants not licences.

Donald Trump

I think some of ye actually think that all one would need to do to remove tenancy rights from your long-term tenants would be for you to let yourself into their house one weekend they are away, barricade yourself into the living room with a sleeping bag and a bucket and then land out on the Monday morning and say "right, yiz are licensees now and can fu^k off" 😀

mrslancaster

Even if no contracts were issued, a tenancy can be verbal. It should be registered but afaik there can only be one tenancy registered for a single address with a single or joint/multiple tenants named on the registration. (Unless the property had planning permission to be divided into separate flats). The occupants would either be joint/multiple tenants, or a single tenant, or a tenant with licensees.

So if the first person who moved in was considered the single tenant of the whole self-contained property, any later occupants taken in by that tenant would only become joint or multiple tenants if they requested it from the landlord. Or they would remain licensees of the first tenant who would always be liable for the full rent of the entire property. And the landlord would not be free to place other individuals into vacant rooms. Alternativley, joint/multiple tenants move in together and are equally liable for all terms of the lease.

In the OP's situation the occupants are renting individual rooms with access to common areas - not individual self-contained units. The landlord has full access to the property, decided which rooms to let or leave vacant, chose the occupants, decided on the duration and terms of each individual letting, receives separate rents, and none of the individuals are liable for the entire rent if others move out.

Does that not meet the description of licensees (in bold) from the rtb website?

A licensee is a person who occupies accommodation under license. Licensees can arise in all sorts of accommodation but most commonly in the following four areas; 

• Persons staying in hotels, guesthouses, hostels, etc;
• Persons sharing a house/ apartment with its owner e.g. under the ‘rent a room’ scheme or ‘in digs’;
• Persons occupying accommodation in which the owner is not resident under a formal license arrangement with the owner where the occupants are not entitled to its exclusive use and the owner has continuing access to the accommodation and/or can move around or change the occupants; and 
• Persons staying in rented accommodation at the invitation of the tenant. 

If the OP situation does not meet this criteria, what does this apply to?

The rtb website also says the following do not need to register so do not come under their remit:

• Tenancies in local authority housing or under shared ownership lease arrangements. 
• Holiday letting agreements. 
• The Rent a Room scheme (where the landlord and the ** tenant ** share the same self-contained property). 
• Instances where a ** tenant** lives with the spouse, civil partner, parent or child of the landlord and there is no written letting agreement in place. 
• Properties which are short term lets. 

It would be helpful if the RTB did not call the occupants of the dwellings above ** tenants ** if they do not come under their remit. They are not tenants as only a tenancy must be registeted. It just confuses the information.

saggy

Thanks guys for all your responses Here is another email that I received from RTB:

‘The RTB is an impartial non-advisory body so we are not permitted to provide direct advice. You may want to direct your queries to the Free Legal Advice Centre (https://www.flac.ie/) or seek your own independent legal advice.

 

If, for the sake of simplicity, you would prefer this tenancy to fall within the jurisdiction of the RTB, note the exemption states;

 

• The RTB Remit does not extend to instances where a tenant lives with the spouse, civil partner, parent or child of the landlordand there is no written letting agreement in place.

This means that if you chose to have a letting agreement with one person (or all) within the property the RTB’s remit could extend to this tenancy.’

TheChizler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121931285#Comment_121931285

I think the killer is that even though there is currently a family member living there and no written agreement in place, the former condition wasn't true previously and so the RTA previously could have applied. You can't unilaterally transition from a situation that falls under the RTA to one that doesn't without officially ending the tenancy first.

themoone

@saggy Did this person replace someone?

saggy

Three individuals were renting rooms separately when one of them decided to leave. I then replaced the vacant spot by allowing my son to stay in the room.

kevgaa

Hi OP,

I think you are hoping someone here will give you a get out jail free card for your situation.

The reality is that the other people in the property pre-date your son moving in. They are tenants and as such you must give them the proper notice and valid reason for the notice, in this case selling the house. Make sure you do everything correctly or it could be a costly mistake.

Get the ball rolling on the correct notice as nothing matters until that is issued. You are just wasting time looking for someone on boards to tell you something you want to hear that may not be correct.

thamus doku

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058342908/landlord-query

Hi

from now to finished sale could take 9 months, maybe more. So if you are selling go to solicitor who will be handling it and start the process of removing tenant. also in todays climate don’t use an auctioneer, sell it yourself and save yourself a lot of money

I can guarantee that they are tenants and not licensees. Some landlords will try the whole I am selling trick to remove tenants, if you are doing this be very careful as the fines if you are caught will be savage.

bobbysands81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924840#Comment_121924840

It’s not the RTB’s role to interpret legislation and/or give legal advice.

If the OP does what this poster is saying then he/she is going to be in mega trouble.

Get proper legal advice.

Donald Trump

If the OP is to be taken at face value then there is no practical issue. Whether their son move in or not is irrelevant as regards the other tenants' rights. The OP can issue notice based on the fact they intend to sell. The only way the son living there might be relevant might be that it could mean that they might be a little less likely to overhold should they have been otherwise so inclined. But that is after the fact.

It's entirely possible that the story is 100% true and it's also possible there are important bits left out. Regardless, people can only answer based on the details given.

If the situation does get messy, and the OP tries to pull a fast one, well the other aspect would be (aside from tenants rights issues) would be whether they left themselves open to anything as regards not having things done by the book otherwise.

Go to the solicitor if you want OP. No harm. But what are you saving when you have the fallback of just issuing the notice anyway due to you selling? Maybe go to them to get them to do that paperwork just in case

As an aside, and out of curiosity, what would be the story with CGT for an investor who had their child living in a house? Presume that doesn't affect the investors liability to CGT (of that period) as it isn't their residence?

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121925712#Comment_121925712

Well they could start by publishing a clear set of rules instead of making it up as they go along. If they could get that far then we can talk about how useless they are at everything else and how to improve that also.

Bio Mech

Given the lack of clarity get the ball rolling ASAP and give him a valid written notice. Start the process of selling in parallel. Get your BER cert etc. As your Son has access it wont be an issue. Any other option is a risk. Youre entitled to evict if you are selling the house. Dont mention the word tenant on the notice to be safe but make sure its valid.

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121969037#Comment_121969037

The rules around what constitutes a tenancy vs licence are laid out in legislation and are pretty clear for the most part.

There's always going to be cases though which fall into a grey area (as there inevitably are with all laws) such as this one by the looks of it; simply blaming the RTB for being "useless" is fair enough in many cases (particularly around waiting times and registering tenancies) but expecting them to be able to give a cast iron answer in cases such as this is nonsense.

Claw Hammer

There are RTB decisions to the effect that if all of the original occupants took individuals rooms separately, none of them is a tenant for the purposes of the RTB because a bedroom is not a dwelling.

The fact that your son moved in has not changed that.

The trouble is that the RTB has been inconsistent on this point over the years. Nobody can predict with 100% certainty what will happen in the event of a dispute.

Most likely the occupants are not tenants, never were and can be removed without undue formality.

meijin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975440#Comment_121975440

As you are claiming that there are such decisions, could please share links to them?

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121976361#Comment_121976361

The links are out of date by now. There are threads on this forum back years ago discussing it.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80995461

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121976361#Comment_121976361

Like you I suspect, I struggle to see how that prevents a tenancy, as all tenants have sole use of their bedrooms, and even if the rooms were rented individually, all would have use of the common areas.

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979006#Comment_121979006

A bedroom is not a dwelling and the landlord retains access to the common areas so collectively the tenants do not have sole control of a dwelling.

meijin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978907#Comment_121978907

and… how does it support your opinion? if you just scroll down a little lower in that thread:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/81001979#Comment_81001979

The other referenced case
TR10/DR532 & 589/2006 Murphy v Flannery is relevant. However this Tribunal
believes that the law is not correctly interpreted in the Murphy case for all the reasons
stated in (a) to (c) above.