Two tenants renting Dublin property ordered to pay landlord €37,000 in arrears

The tenants, who were living in a house in Clonskeagh, had racked up rent arrears of €41,000 and had their security deposit of €3,950 withheld.

The rental watchdog, the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), ordered for the outstanding amount of €37,973 to be paid.

The latest disputes published by the RTB show tenants have racked up significant arrears, while some refused to vacate properties after being served with valid eviction notices.

Landlords who illegally evicted tenants and unfairly retained rental deposits were also the subject of complaints.

A tenant renting an apartment in Howth, Co Dublin, was ordered to pay arrears of €12,500, while a woman renting a property from a housing body in Carndonagh, Co Donegal, was ordered to pay more than €8,000 in arrears.

In another case, a landlord took a case against two tenants who had not paid him any rent for months.

He said he received a notification last September from a member of the Housing Assistant Payment (HAP) scheme that the tenants had not been paying their contribution to the rent. Their HAP payments ceased as a result.

The landlord, who owns a house in Dublin 11, said he contacted the respondent tenants by text and advised them a warning letter would be sent, followed by a notice of termination if the rent was not paid.

The RTB ruled that he did not follow the correct procedure for issuing a notice of termination, but ordered for the tenants to pay the outstanding arrears of €7,700 at a rate of €500 per month.

There were 22 disputes concerning tenants allegedly overholding after being issued with notices of termination.

Housing charities have indicated that tenants are refusing to move out of properties as they have nowhere else to go due to a lack of rental and emergency accommodation.

More than 4,300 notices of termination were issued by landlords in the last three months of last year. Of the total number of eviction notices issued, 43pc were to tenants in Dublin, with nearly 11pc in Cork and more than 6pc in Galway.

Some landlords were ordered to pay damages after serving invalid eviction notices and failing to return deposits. In one case, the landlord of a property in Cork was ordered to pay €200 damages and return a security deposit of €1,000.