Warning notices have been issued to over 3,000 landlords over their failure to register rental properties as required by law.
However, the Private Residential Tenancies Board, which has imposed several deadlines for the registration of rental properties, says it has yet to prosecute a single landlord for not complying with legal obligations.
Some 115,000 rented houses and flats have been registered with the board since it was set up in 2004. This means that landlords owning up to 35,000 of the estimated 150,000 rented dwellings in the State still haven't registered with the board.
Theoretically, landlords who fail to register on the board's database can be fined up to €3,000 and/or face a prison sentence of up to six months.
The board has made adjudications in over 400 landlord-tenant disputes so far, many of which have resulted in fines for landlords who carried out illegal evictions or withheld deposits from tenants. In other cases, decision have been made against tenants who were found to have failed to pay rent or who refused to vacate a rented property after being served with a valid notice to quit.
Among the landlords against whom a determination has been made is former Fianna Fáil junior minister Ivor Callely and his wife Jennifer, who were ordered to pay a total of €763 earlier this year to four tenants of a property they own in Artane. The sum represented a deposit of €698 and costs of €65.
Prominent businessman Ulick McEvaddy and his wife Mary were ordered to pay tenants €5,447, being the balance of a deposit, less €5,000 in rent arrears in respect of a rented property in Malahide.
According to the board, it has ordered payments varying from €50 to €30,000 in cases where landlords were found to have withheld deposits or where rent arrears were due. In cases of illegal eviction, damages awarded have varied from €5,000 to €10,000.
Last year, landlords and tenants made 720 valid applications to the service but so far, decisions have been published in only 277 of these cases. Already this year, 773 valid applications have been received, and decisions have been published in 113 of these cases.
Heavy demand for the board's disputes resolution services, which were introduced to replace the use of the courts in landlord/tenant cases, has forced it to curtail its telephone services for the public to mornings only. The board says it has cut the time for processing registrations from 10 weeks to four to five weeks.
