The landlord of an apartment in Sandyford, Dublin 18, was justified in serving a seven-day eviction notice on a tenant after a drugs raid during which the front door of the property was broken in, several arrests were made, and a Garda helicopter deployed, a tribunal of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) has found.
The tribunal ordered tenant Barry Winter should leave the apartment in Kerrymount, Castle Court, Kilgobbin Wood, and pay rent arrears of €14,454. It upheld the eviction notice served in February by landlord Paul Murphy on the grounds of antisocial behaviour.
Mr Winter did not attend the appeal hearing in July where the landlord successfully alleged overholding. At the hearing the landlord’s representatives said they had not as yet received vacant possession and so were not able to quantify what they said was “significant damage” to the property, which has been let to Mr Winter since July 2020.
A representative of a property management company said there were complaints from the occupants of other apartments in the building about shouting, late-night behaviour, and belongings being left in the corridors.
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“She said that the fire alarm was regularly activated and that she thought the electricity had been cut off in the apartment. She said that a number of people unknown to the property managers were staying at the dwelling and that she thought these people may have gained access by the balcony,” according to the tribunal report.
The situation was volatile and since the Garda raid on February 2nd, noise levels had not abated, the report said. Refuse was being left in common areas and electricity sourced from common areas.
“She said the other residents were very afraid and that the tenant and people staying at the apartment were causing fear and intimidation. She said that the Garda had confirmed that these individuals were known to them.”
The tribunal was told no rent had been paid since Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) support ceased because the tenant had not been making the requisite contributions.
The landlord’s property manager told the tribunal he was advised by the Garda it would be pointless to repair the apartment’s door as it was likely there would be a further raid for the same reasons, the tribunal report said.
In a separate report also published by the RTB on Monday, a tribunal decided another seven-day notice of termination based on antisocial behaviour served in December was valid and the tenant was ordered to leave.
The case was taken by Michael Kelleher in respect of Krystyna Zapalowska, the tenant of a property at Blarney Street, Cork, who did not attend the hearing.
“The tribunal accepts that the landlord is receiving repeated contact from neighbours of the dwelling over the behaviour of the tenant and visitors to the dwelling,” the tribunal report said.
“Specifically, the behaviour complained of at the dwelling involved the tenant and visitors to the dwelling drinking to excess, fighting, and some visitors were also urinating on the street.”
The front windows of the property were broken and no explanation for this was given to Mr Kelleher by his tenant, the report said.
He boarded up the windows but the boards were removed and replaced with smaller ones “to allow people who didn’t have keys to enter the dwelling”, the report said.
“The tribunal finds that the landlord has serious concerns for the safety of the neighbours of the dwelling having regard to the behaviour that has been prevalent there,” the report said.
