Rotating Tenants Lease End

Ray Palmer

A friend of mine has this issue and asked me how it works and I really don't know myself.

He rents out a place and for various reasons the tenants keep rotating. So while 3 people rent it at all times the original tenants are not there anymore and he says that he is actually on his 3rd or 4th set of 3 people. Now the longest tenant is leaving and the latest set will all be there less than 6 months. He wants to end the rental to do it up and change the rent.

I have no idea where this stands in the current rules. There is no lease as such has he never did up a new lease due to the changes of tenants

mrslancaster

Long post here as this is a very interesting situation because it is very common, and hasn’t caused too much concern for a lot of landlords. I tried to find out about this same situation a while ago for my nephew who was in a house share and there was a constant churn in residents.

AFAIR, a lot of posters felt it was covered by this:

S50. (3) Any person who the landlord accepts as a tenant of a dwelling on, or subsequent to, a Part 4 tenancy coming into existence in respect of it, shall, on his or her having been in occupation of the dwelling for a continuous period of 6 months (and that tenancy still subsists), benefit from the protection of that tenancy; accordingly, the rights, restrictions and obligations under this Part shall, on and from the expiry of that period of 6 months, apply in relation to that person as they apply in relation to the multiple tenant whose continuous occupation gave rise to the Part 4 tenancy's existence.

(4) The reference in subsection (3) to a landlord's accepting a person as a tenant is a reference to his or her accepting a person as a tenant—

(a) whether as a replacement for any of the existing multiple tenants or as an additional tenant to them, and

(b) whether or not the person was immediately before that acceptance a licensee in occupation of the dwelling.

The landlord is required to accept and acknowledge a replacement or an additional tenant. They don’t need to be a licensee beforehand, but any new tenant must be accepted and acknowledged in writing by the landlord per S50.8(a). That makes sense as presumably the original tenants who were granted the lease still hold the legal rights of occupancy and any amendments must be agreed by all parties. One side can’t just decide to vary the lease. If a landlord agrees, a solicitor or EA should ideally amend the lease or maybe an update and printout of the RTB registration data is sufficient. Every tenant should have a copy of their lease agreement from their landlord.

If the landlord doesn’t agree and acknowledge a new tenant in writing, then IMO the rotating residents remain licensees of the legal tenant. Some posters felt the licensee could be deemed tenants by the RTB but I never managed to get clear answers on how that could come about if the landlord didn’t agree to it in writing.

AFAICS, “and that tenancy still subsists” means the legal tenancy between the landlord and the individual/s granted the tenancy has not been terminated by either party or abandoned (sorry, don’t know the legal word) by the tenant/s. I think it means the tenancy only exists if any original person on the tenancy agreement or any person accepted and added as a tenant at a later date by the landlord is still in occupation. Otherwise, any person could just move in and claim part4 tenancy rights after six months. If a resident in a rental property is not a legal tenant they must be a licensee of a legal tenant.

If every legal tenant in a house share has voluntarily vacated, and the landlord has not added any new legal tenant, who holds the lease and the legal tenancy rights? How can the tenancy still be in existence?

Iscreamkone

Very interesting issue with regard to the new rental rules coming.

If one tenant leaves can a landlord say that the tenancy is over and move to raise the rent to market value? Or does he have to wait until ALL original tenants have moved on before increasing the rent?

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123534026#Comment_123534026

He certainly didn't do it formally but i guess texts could be seen as in writing. There is no lease and nobody has been there longer than 6 months. It sounds like the original tenancy is no longer in play. I even think the tenant that just left was only there a little over a year.

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123534408#Comment_123534408

Imo when all the original tenants have left voluntarily over time, and if the landlord hasn’t added any new individuals as tenants to the lease or rtb registration, presumably the tenancy would be over when the last tenant vacates. Any licensees of those previous tenants should also have to vacate unless they wanted to create a completely new tenancy with the landlord. A new tenancy created after 1/3/26 can be set to market rents so that might focus landlords to tighten up how house shares and rotating residents works currently.