A landlord alleged to have stood in front of her tenants’ home banging a bowl with a spoon and shouting “Woo, the tenants are going today” has been ordered to pay more than €8,000 by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).
In response the landlord told an RTB tribunal one of the tenants had been “shooting ‘scortty’ looks” at her daughter.
The tenancy tribunal found notices of termination on the grounds of antisocial behaviour served on tenants Megan Kellett and Jake Webster last August by landlords Janna Yore and Eric Yore were invalid.
The tribunal heard that Ms Kellett and Mr Webster became tenants of a house in Carrigasimon, Lisduff, Virginia, Co Cavan in November 2020 and vacated the dwelling on September 1st, 2024. The tenancy was never registered with the RTB.
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Two seven-day notices of termination were served on the tenants on the grounds of antisocial behaviour, on August 5th and August 13th.
Ms Kellett told the tribunal that between August 13th and September 1st, when she and Mr Webster vacated the property, a number of incidents occurred, including Ms Yore standing at their front door at 8am banging a bowl with a spoon and shouting “Woo, the tenants are going today”; Mr Yore driving his ride-on mower around the house and sellotaping notices to their window alleging breach of tenant obligations; calls to An Garda Siochána by the landlords; and blocking the drive with bins.
Ms Yore told the tribunal that before August of last year Ms Kellett had been intimidating the Yore’s daughter by asking her not to ride her bike near the house. Ms Kellett had been shooting “scortty” looks at her daughter Ms Yore said.
On August 1st, Ms Yore said she was returning her horses to the stable and asked Ms Kellett to move so she could get by. According to the tribunal record Ms Yore said Ms Kellett refused and “provoked her and assaulted her”.
Ms Yore said at this point she told Ms Kellett she would be serving notice of termination because “she could no longer tolerate this terrible situation” the tribunal heard. The following day there was a separate incident where Ms Kellett slammed a gate, Ms Yore said.
Ms Yore denied standing outside the house banging a bowl with a spoon. She accepted the tenants’ clothes line had been removed because Ms Yore said “it was spooking the horses” and she acknowledged an electric fence had been moved so the tenants would not have room to put up another clothesline. She said she called Garda because the tenants had made “such a big deal of the clothesline being removed”. She said that she had “performed a dance routine” when she found Ms Kellett videoing her.
Mr Yore told the tribunal he had an “informal arrangement” with the tenants and that was why the tenancy not registered with the RTB. He felt the tenants were “always unhappy” because they had been unable to apply for a tax credit because the tenancy was unregistered.
He denied unnecessarily riding around the house on his mower and said he was simply cutting the grass.
The tribunal found the tenants were entitled to 180 days’ notice based on their length of tenancy. It said that even if the landlords’ evidence about the behaviour of the tenants was accepted, it did not meet the definition of antisocial behaviour and so the seven days’ notice of termination was invalid.
The tribunal has ordered the landlords to pay their former tenants damages of €7,200 for “unlawful termination of their tenancy”, €600 for overcharges in rent, €873.70 of deposit withheld and a €70 fuel credit.
