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Should this be caught by the rent cap?

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  • 30-07-2019 12:27pm
    #1
    charlie.hotel
    Registered Users Posts: 2 ✭


    Brief overview of my situation:

    Rented a 2-bed apartment in Dublin 1 with a friend from Oct-16 to Sep-18. Tenancy ended as landlord was selling the apartment. I kept track of this and the sale appeared to close around Dec-18. It’s now Aug-19 and the apartment has appeared on Daft.ie for rent at €1,200 per room per month, up €350 (or 41% !!) from the €850 per month we were paying from 2016-2018. From the pictures posted it looks like it’s been painted and got new carpets but is otherwise identical (same kitchen appliances, bathroom fittings etc.).

    Question - should this not be within the 4% rent cap?


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    #2
    Fian
    Registered Users Posts: 2,188 ✭✭✭Fian


    charlie.hotel wrote: »
    Brief overview of my situation:

    Rented a 2-bed apartment in Dublin 1 with a friend from Oct-16 to Sep-18. Tenancy ended as landlord was selling the apartment. I kept track of this and the sale appeared to close around Dec-18. It’s now Aug-19 and the apartment has appeared on Daft.ie for rent at €1,200 per room per month, up €350 (or 41% !!) from the €850 per month we were paying from 2016-2018. From the pictures posted it looks like it’s been painted and got new carpets but is otherwise identical (same kitchen appliances, bathroom fittings etc.).

    Question - should this not be within the 4% rent cap?

    Quite probably it should.

    However the new owner may have no way of knowing what the "rent cap" total would be since he/she were not a party to your lease.

    If an actual sale took place you have not been shafted in any way.

    This is a fundamental problem with the rent caps - they feed directly into the value of the place that is being rented. This was clearly bought as an investment by the new owner and the fact that they are legally tied to an arbitrary below market rent cap demonstrates that no prudent investor should be buying rental property without first establishing the previous rents and rent cap amounts. making rental property less attractive and being yet another factor limiting supply.


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    #3
    pansophelia
    Registered Users Posts: 277 ✭✭pansophelia


    Fian wrote: »
    Quite probably it should.

    However the new owner may have no way of knowing what the "rent cap" total would be since he/she were not a party to your lease.

    Is this correct? I think even if sold rent on a new tenancy cannot be increased more than limits allow unless dwelling hasn’t been rented for more than 24 months. Not saying that the OP has been shafted - more that the new LL can’t legally increase the rent this much.
    Might be worth a call to the RTB to clarify if you’re wondering.


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    #4
    dennyk
    Registered Users Posts: 1,650 ✭✭✭dennyk


    pansophelia wrote: »
    Is this correct? I think even if sold rent on a new tenancy cannot be increased more than limits allow unless dwelling hasn’t been rented for more than 24 months.

    Yep, the RPZ cap survives a sale of the property, assuming the new owner doesn't do a substantial enough renovation to qualify for an exemption and it hasn't been at least two years since the property was last subject to a tenancy. Of course, Fian's point still stands; it's quite possible that the new owner may not be aware of the previous rent amount or how long that rent price was in place unless the previous owner disclosed it during the sale (which they may not have, especially if it was well below market rate and they knew that would probably affect the sale price) and therefore the new owner may not have any way of knowing what rent they can legally set, so it creates a bit of a quandary. Not sure there's any easy way to resolve that dilemma short of a public rent registry of some sort, or somehow allowing access to the relevant RTB registration information for new property owners (if the tenancy was even registered, of course...).


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