Penalties to be re-imposed on landlords who miss deadline to register tenancies

Following a series of what it deemed technical improvements and increased staffing in a contact centre, the Residential Tenancies Board is now in a position to re-impose late fees of €10 a month if a landlord doesn’t register a tenancy on time.

The Residential Tenancies Board has said it will resume charging late fees to landlords who fail to register a tenancy on time — more than a year after suspending the penalties due to significant delays and backlogs.

The regulator said the move comes after it had “worked continuously to address the issues and concerns raised by users of the platform”.

“A late fee will be applied for each month, or part thereof, that a new tenancy registration or annual registration renewal with a start date on or after 1 March 2024 is deemed to be late,” it said.  “Late fees will not be applied retrospectively.” 

It stopped charging late fees in late 2022 and refunded landlords who had been charged as a “recognition by us that the current situation is not acceptable”.

The watchdog said the introduction of a system of annual registration for landlords significantly increased the number of landlords and agents who engaged with it daily, while a new online registration portal also caused issues with “unprecedented demand”.

“Some landlords/agents experienced difficulties in retrieving and linking data to migrate it to the new tenancy registration system from the RTB’s old system,” it said. “Many users found the system confusing and slow to navigate which caused unnecessary frustration and delay in completing registrations to users of the system.” 

The shortcomings at the RTB had been well flagged by its own director, Niall Byrne, who raised the issues before Oireachtas committees in the past.

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Mr Byrne, who was due to leave his role at the beginning of this year after just two years in the job, had said: “Coming into the role, I have discovered that our systems and processes are not working well and people are finding it difficult to deal with the RTB. Unfortunately, that is a fact.

"The design of [the registration] system represented a significant investment of public money, time and effort. It will deliver for the RTB and the public but at the moment, unfortunately, it is not delivering to the requisite standard.” 

However, following a series of what it deemed technical improvements and increased staffing in a contact centre, it is now in a position to re-impose late fees of €10 a month if a landlord doesn’t register a tenancy on time.

During the height of the crisis in 2022, the Irish Examiner reported that the RTB had almost doubled the number of agency staff in its contact centre to deal with the “significantly high” volume of calls coming in.