A tenant who did not sleep in his apartment for more than a year due to alleged bed bugs has been awarded €1,000 in damages after his landlord changed the locks in the belief he was using it solely for storage.
Landlord Donal Power said at a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal that tenant Toby Millie had been “taking HAP [housing assistance payments] for a property that he was not living in".
The RTB heard Mr Millie did not stay at the apartment in Freshford, Co Kilkenny, overnight due to an alleged bed-bug infestation which he raised with Mr Power in February 2023.
While he had not slept at the apartment since then, he claimed he was there several times a week for several hours each day, “keeping the electricity going and heating the place” and cooking meals.
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Mr Power, meanwhile, claimed it had been “some years” since Mr Millie was last living properly in the apartment, saying it was “strange”, according to an RTB tribunal report published this week.
The landlord said he was “very sceptical” about the bed bugs complaint, claiming it was an “excuse for not living in the apartment” and that he had it inspected but no bed bugs were found.
Believing his tenant was solely using the apartment for “storage”, he outlined concerns that receiving monthly HAP payments of €660 could be “fraudulent for somebody who was not living in the apartment for which the payments were being made”.
Mr Power issued a warning notice in April last year after Mr Millie missed two HAP top-up payments worth €180 in total, before subsequently issuing a notice of termination in May, although his tenant did not vacate by the June deadline.
In July, Mr Power changed the locks and put Mr Millie’s belongings into storage.
Mr Millie told the tribunal that he had “nowhere to live”, that he was staying with friends and that his children were also affected as they used to stay at the apartment.
Mr Power, meanwhile, said his former tenant’s situation was “entirely of his own making”.
He said that Mr Millie “had an apartment that was almost entirely funded by HAP payments and he chose not to live there and is now claiming that he is homeless but he has been staying with friends”.
The tribunal accepted there were “genuine questions” surrounding whether Mr Millie was “actually living in the apartment” following his complaint in February 2023.
However, it found that he had not abandoned it when Mr Power unlawfully entered, changed the locks and removed his possessions.
“Even if he was not actually living there, the tribunal is satisfied that the tenant suffered significant loss and inconvenience as a result of the unlawful termination of his tenancy by the landlord,” the tribunal said, before ordering Mr Power to pay his former tenant €1,000 in damages.
