A Dublin landlord has been hit with the largest-ever fine issued by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) for failing to register 20 tenancies in multiple city centre properties.
Sweet Home Accommodation Ltd was issued a €22,000 fine for a breach of rental laws at six city centre properties under its control.
The properties, sanctioned in November 2024, were on Middle Abbey Street, Upper Abbey Street and Lower Leeson Street.
Details of the sanction were published by the RTB on Thursday in its Director’s Quarterly Update, along with 35 other sanctions.
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Other significant sanctions included an €8,990 fine for landlord Brendan O’Brien for breaches of Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) rules and failure to register a tenancy at an apartment on Harbour Road in Howth.
Landlords Eugene and Anne McCabe were fined €8,000 for a breach of RPZ rules at a house in Lucan, while the Gateway Student Village was fined €7,500 for breaching RPZ rules at an apartment in its student village in Ballymun.
The sanctions come as the RTB prepares to launch a targeted crackdown on Galway landlords for what it calls a “concerning” trend of consistently high rental prices in the county.
There have been eight consecutive quarters of high growth in new tenancy rent prices in Galway, according to the RTB/ESRI rental index published on Thursday.
The average rent for new tenancies in Galway city in the last quarter of 2024 was €1,730, which represents an 8.4 per cent increase on the previous year.
The average rent for new tenancies in Galway county was €1,331, which represents a 9.1 per cent increase on the previous year.
These high rates of growth of rental prices are happening despite the fact that all of Co Galway is an RPZ, meaning rent increases should be capped at 2 per cent per year, or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
There are also concerns over the registration of tenancies in the county, as the number of tenancies reported in CSO data did not match the number of tenancies registered with the RTB. This has prompted the RTB to commence an investigation this summer.
The RTB says it will “engage directly with renters, landlords and other stakeholders in the county this June to investigate the trend further”.
“Galway is coming up as having a disproportionately higher rate of issues with our compliance team,” RTB director Rosemary Steen said.
Eight of the sanctions published on Thursday concerned landlords in Galway, the majority of whom were sanctioned for breaches of RPZ rules.
Speaking at the launch of the report on Thursday, Louise Loughlin, deputy director of the RTB, said the board is planning further focus on Galway in the coming weeks and months.
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“We want to send a clear message to landlords who are not complying with their obligations under rental law,” Ms Loughlin said.
The RTB data published on Thursday also found that growth in rents for both new and existing tenancies has moderated.
The average rent for new tenancies across the country is now €1,680 per month, while for existing tenancies it is €1,440 a month.
