The tenant moved into a three-bedroom house in Swords, Co. Dublin in 2019 and paid a rent of €1,900 a month. She never queried the rent until a neighbour informed her in the summer of 2023 that the previous tenant had been paying €1,500 pm.
The tenant said that she was not familiar with the RPZ rules and only that she was served with a notice to terminate the lease that she went onto the RPZ website and read about her rights as a tenant.
The tenant claimed that she asked the landlord how much the previous tenant had paid but she claimed that he told her that it was none of her business. The landlord claimed that he was never asked by the tenant what the previous rent was.
The landlord told the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) that the previous tenant had rented the house from October 2015 to July 2018 at a monthly rent of €1,500.
The RPZ rules came into operation in December 2016.
As the house was located in a designated RPZ zone, the maximum annual increases the landlord could apply was 4%. On this basis the maximum he could have charged the tenant at the start of the new tenancy in 2019 was €1,754 per month. Therefore, there was a monthly overpayment of €145.21.
The landlord said he entered the lease agreement in good faith and in compliance of the law as best he could.
The RTB awarded the tenant €8,500 for the overcharging of rent.
Germaine v Horgan Residential Tenancies Board Ref No.: TR0824-007961, 8 January 2025.
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