'I’ve heard of landlords exploiting loopholes by increasing parking or utility fees'

The RTB had another piece of research to share — a ‘property-level analysis’ — which focused on trends for rents being charged for individual properties.

In simpler terms, the RTB, which has faced much criticism for its toothlessness in the face of Ireland’s exploding rents, is now able to record and publish data on how individual rents on specific properties have changed over the past two years.

This has been made possible by the fact that tenancies have been registered with the RTB on an annual basis since 2022.

In each case, the rent charged is noted and compared with what went before.

The figures are certainly of interest.

The RTB noted that the majority, 70%, of the 182,000 individual tenancies surveyed had rent changes of 2% or less — fairly low-level hikes in other words.

Outside the rent pressure zones (RPZs) — areas where caps are imposed to control prices — 71% of rentals showed no change at all, according to the presentation by the RTB.

The data on individual properties, as presented last week, suggests a functioning tenancies market, but not even the hardiest of optimistic-thinkers would describe Ireland’s cutthroat rentals situation in that manner.

So what’s going on?

Despite the fact that many rents hardly changed, the overall figures in Ireland are still increasing at a rate of knots. The devil, as always, is in the detail.

There are a few things to note.

Cumulative increases are permitted

First, the tenancies which are increasing the most are bringing the overall average up nationwide.

More than 16,100 rental properties nationwide saw their rents increase by at least 8% over the 21-month period that the RTB was looking at.

As the RTB noted in its presentation, increases of more than 2% do not necessarily indicate non-compliance with the RPZ legislation. Rent increases can be applied cumulatively, for example — that is, a landlord can leave a figure charged unchanged for four years, and then apply each of the four 2% increases in one go.

It may seem like a harsh thing to do, but it’s legal.

Landlords' word is accepted in good faith 

The second factor to note is that the data supplied is entirely dependent on what individual landlords say they are charging. No proof is required on the landlord’s part. It is, in effect, dependent on the good faith responses of the landlords registering their tenancies.

Such a system by its very nature is an open goal for abuse.

New leases bounded by RPZ limits 

Finally, and crucially, the RTB notes that tenancies where one renter leaves a property and another takes over are far more likely to see a hefty rent increase than those where the incumbent tenant stays in place.

Strictly speaking, such increases are contrary to RPZ rules. In practice, putting a stop to them would seem close to impossible.

Tenants don’t tend to pay much attention to their previous rental when moving on and, unless they inform the RTB about what’s happened, there is little that can be done.

In Dublin, a property is four times as likely to see rent raised by 8% or more when a tenant vacates their property. The same multiplier applies to the other RPZs nationwide.

Outside Dublin, one in five of the 9,700 rentals which saw a change in tenant had their rent raised by the same amount.

Outside the RPZs, in counties like Donegal and Leitrim, the figures are even more stark — more than one in two such rentals had their asking price increased by 8% or more annually between 2022 and 2024.

Which brings us back to RPZs themselves.

Rent pressure zones

Rent pressure zones were first introduced by then housing minister Simon Coveney in 2016 in an attempt to control the trend of exploding rents.

Eight years later, Ireland’s rental situation is infinitely more problematic than it was, and RPZs remain the only show in town in terms of rental checks.

New locations added to the RPZ roster and the never-ending rental crisis mean that the pressure zones now account for more than 82% of the entire private rental market.

The rules for an RPZ are simple enough. Once an area has been deemed to be a pressure zone — due to the rents there being noted as both high and rising fast — landlords are prohibited from raising rent by more than 2% annually, with certain exceptions, such as the aforementioned cumulative increases, if the property has been empty for two years, or if refurbishments constituting “a substantial change in the nature of the accommodation” have occurred.

That 2% restriction also applies when the tenants change, as they do all the time. The problem is there is no way to monitor what a landlord is charging from one tenancy to the next.

As our case study from Athy shows, in which the landlord attempted to nearly double the rent to €2,000 when new tenants moved in, this is an area wide open to abuse.

Threshold advocacy manager Ann-Marie O’Reilly says that while RPZs “have had a moderating impact” in terms of rental levels, in her experience, little is done to monitor the raising of rents subsequent to a tenant vacating a property. 

Describing herself as “shocked” at the near-doubling of rent at the Athy property, Ms O’Reilly said Threshold is “only rarely” made aware of instances of rent being disproportionately increased after a tenant vacates.

Another landlord in Kilkenny attempted to raise the rent from one tenancy to the next by 82%. In that case, the tenant was wise to the situation and took the matter to the RTB, where the landlord was promptly ordered to reduce the rent to within its RPZ limits.

Those situations relates to a change in tenancy.

A tenant in Galway meanwhile told us how the landlord moved to raise the rent of a four-bed house from €1,700 to €3,600 overnight after replacing the house’s boiler.

In moving the house’s BER (building energy rating) up a level, the landlord argued a ‘substantial change’ to the accommodation had been achieved.

That case went to the RTB for dispute resolution, a process the tenants eventually lost — a result which saw them vacate the property because they simply couldn’t afford it any more.

The RTB is not without corrective powers in terms of landlords (and tenants) behaving badly.

When notified of a potential breach of the Residential Tenancies Act by a member of the public, which includes raising rents unlawfully in a RPZ, the RTB can investigate the circumstances and — if improper conduct is deemed to have occurred — apply a sanction of up to €15,000 and a further €15,000 in costs.

The board can also instigate such an investigation of a landlord of its own volition.

'Tenants fear reporting RPZ breaches'

However, Ciarán Mulqueen (better known by his CrazyHousePrices social media moniker) who monitors much of the madness of Ireland’s housing market, describes Irish renters as feeling “disempowered”. 

“Anecdotally, a lot of tenants tell me their landlords are raising rents above the RPZ limits, but they’re too fearful to report it due to the risk of eviction,” he says.

“The lack of rental supply means many are willing to endure this just to keep a roof over their heads, especially those with children.

“There are also concerns about unregistered landlords who aren’t adhering to RPZ rules.  

I’ve heard of landlords exploiting loopholes by increasing parking or utility fees to bypass rent caps. 

Mr Mulqueen says that, in terms of reporting the behaviour of errant landlords, “many tenants feel disempowered by the complex reporting process and weak enforcement, with disputes taking too long to resolve”, coupled with fears of being “blacklisted” by other landlords should they speak out.

How a rental register could help 

A part solution to the problem of ever-spiralling rents could be the introduction of a rental register, one which monitors the rent paid at a location on an ongoing basis and is viewable to the public.

The idea isn’t a far-fetched one — tenants’ advocates Threshold have been pushing for its introduction for at least six years, and Ireland already has similar registers in place for property sales and commercial rents.

An unofficial crowd-supported register has existed for the past year, to be found at HowMuchRent.com, with the site’s creators inviting renters to add their story to its interactive map.

“We all have a rental story to share. Details of all rents should be publicly available. It’s time for rental transparency,” the site states.

Nevertheless, eight years after RPZs were introduced, there is no official State-operated rental register to be seen.

Back in 2017, the Department of Housing fobbed off queries as to why there is no register in place by saying that data protection concerns — even before the arrival of GDPR in 2018 — wouldn’t allow for the creation of such a public portal.

Privacy concerns rebuffed

That argument would seem to be rebuffed by the existence of the property price register — if people are entitled to know what a house costs, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to know what it rents for? Things have changed since 2017, of course, but we still have no register.

The Housing Commission, which delivered its final report last May, specifically suggested that “a publicly available register of rents being charged” be established. Asked what progress had been made towards that end, the Department of Housing said it was a matter for the Housing Agency. The Housing Agency duly said the issue is one of Government policy, and therefore falls under the remit of the Department of Housing.

Asked for a second time what progress is being made, a spokesperson for the department said the Housing Agency “is supporting the department’s consideration and implementation of the Housing Commission’s recommendations via an analysis of costings, feasibility, and timelines”.

“The department will be in a better position to answer your queries when that analysis is complete,” the spokesperson said, though giving little indication as to when that might be.

Former Fine Gael TD for Dublin North-West, Noel Rock, brought forward legislation to introduce a rent register in 2017 after being “given evidence too many times that RPZs were proving ineffective”.

When I introduced the legislation, the reaction from some landlords locally was vicious. 

"I had one visit my office to berate me for introducing it, claiming it would invade his privacy,” he says.

Mr Rock subsequently queried the RTB about the introduction of a register in 2019 when he was chairman of the Oireachtas housing committee.

“They informed us that it would be something they would be interested in, provided they could get access to further staffing resources,” he says. 

“I think the reward outweighs the risk: A transparent register protects good tenants [and] honest landlords and makes enforcement of existing law more straightforward,” he adds, while noting his “frustration” at the lack of progress.

Ms O’Reilly, meanwhile, says that the instance of rent being doubled in Athy underlines the need for a national rent register, but adds that any suggestions by her organisation to that effect have been consistently rebuffed by the Department of Housing over GDPR concerns.

“There needs to be something to aid renters. A register would help with the enforcement of the RPZs, and would go some way towards discouraging breaches of the 2% cap in the first place.”