Property

We have an order to remove an antisocial tenant. What can we do now?

Property Clinic: He only pays half the rent and has verbally attacked neighbours

The woman he was renting the house with moved out just two weeks after moving in. Photograph: iStock

Fri Apr 10 2020 - 06:00

We have a determination order from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), ordering our tenant to leave at the end of the month. He is very antisocial and only pays half the rent. The house is a two-bed, and was let to him and a girl he knew from work. Within two weeks the girl left.

He refused to allow us re-rent her room and therefore only pays for his own room while he has meanwhile moved his mother into the girl's room. He has also verbally attacked several neighbours. What can we do now?

When it comes to RTB cases it is very hard to comment on individual cases with limited information. You mention that you have a determination order from the RTB. I can only assume from the content of your question it is for rent arrears which then led to over-holding.

Hence the next step is to go to the enforcement section of the RTB if the tenant has not complied with the determination order. Alternatively, the determination order can be enforced through the District Court.

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Determination order

When it comes to enforcement, the RTB tends to encourage the landlord enforcing the determination order as it can take up a lot of the RTB resources. This seems unfair but if you feel strongly about it then you should do your best to get the RTB to do it but it won’t be a quick process.

Moving on to the antisocial behaviour, this is a very difficult one as it is hard to prove it under the definition contained within the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. All I can advise is to try to build evidence to this end while waiting on the enforcement to come through as it will help your case when presenting it in the District Court. – Marcus O'Connor

Marcus O'Connor is a chartered surveyor and managing director of MFO, The Property Professionals. He is a member of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, scsi.ie

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