PRTB shower of wasters charging late fees

clevtrev

Just arrived home off holidays to get a letter from this shower looking for a late registration fee. I sent the registration on the 23rd of Dec for a tenancy that kicked off on the 28th of Nov. They say that they received it on the 2nd of Jan and they have stamped it with this date. The rule is that it must be registered within a month of the start of the tenancy or they double the registration fee. The mail isn't great over Christmas but it is unlikely that it took this long to arrive in the PRTB office. Anway I never heard of an Irish government department being such sticklers before other than maybe revenue for VAT.

I'll call and complain to them on Wednesday but just wondering if I have any way to contest this late fee with them as I m sure if they have the cheek to issue this fee in the first place then they are unlikely to back down. they are obviously trying to maximise revenues in order to justify their miserable existence

Also just to add insult to injury it took them over 2 months to return my application to me with the late fee attached and in the interim I am not registered

juvenal

Not sure what they'll say regarding contesting the late fee, probably that you're not entitled to get it back.

On a side note, posting something on 23rd December and expecting it to be there anytime before January is delusional. Do you really think that it would be delivered before the end of the Christmas holiday period? I'm sure An Post had published delivery times in every media outlet well in advance of Christmas advising consumers what the last date for posting pre-Christmas letters was.

You took four weeks to send a letter in that you should probably have sent as soon as you had a property for rental. It's not their problem that you didn't have your act together and ensure that you were registered in ample time.

Given the current economic climate, they're quite right to maximise revenue. Hopefully this will be a side-effect of the recession that national agencies will buckle up on efficiency and the oul attitude of "ah shure it'll be grand" that has been in Ireland for generations are gone for good. Further than that, the PTRB exists to regulate the property rental market, which for many years was a legal minefield, with both tenants and landlords abusing their positions with regards to legal rights and taxation.

Good luck with the complaint, but I'd be surprised if you get a refund (and rightly so IMO).

mikemac

You can't post a letter on December 23rd and expect it to arrive somewhere by December 28th.

Be thankful you're not dealing with the Revenue, they'd probably be charging you interest on the late fee.
In fact in 2008, you leave aside Christmas Day and St Stephens day as having no service and the 27th and 28th were Saturday and Sunday.

So you were expecting it to arrive by Christmas Eve.
Get real, it wasn't going to happen and January 2nd sounds about right

mickoneill30

mikemac wrote: »

You can't post a letter on December 23rd and expect it to arrive somewhere by December 28th.

23rd was a Tues. That left it to arrive by 24th. 25,26 were bank holidays and 27th and 28th were weekend days.

I know post is slow around Christmas but even on a normal time of the year you'd be doing well for it go get there the next working day.

clevtrev

juvenal wrote: »

Not sure what they'll say regarding contesting the late fee, probably that you're not entitled to get it back.

On a side note, posting something on 23rd December and expecting it to be there anytime before January is delusional. Do you really think that it would be delivered before the end of the Christmas holiday period? I'm sure An Post had published delivery times in every media outlet well in advance of Christmas advising consumers what the last date for posting pre-Christmas letters was.

You took four weeks to send a letter in that you should probably have sent as soon as you had a property for rental. It's not their problem that you didn't have your act together and ensure that you were registered in ample time.

Given the current economic climate, they're quite right to maximise revenue. Hopefully this will be a side-effect of the recession that national agencies will buckle up on efficiency and the oul attitude of "ah shure it'll be grand" that has been in Ireland for generations are gone for good. Further than that, the PTRB exists to regulate the property rental market, which for many years was a legal minefield, with both tenants and landlords abusing their positions with regards to legal rights and taxation.

Good luck with the complaint, but I'd be surprised if you get a refund (and rightly so IMO).

guys thanks for the feedback but I think you are missing the point a bit here. This is a mess of an agency that take months to process a registration and then quibble over a few days late for a submission over the holiday period which probably sat in their mail tray over the Christmas until they stamped it on Jan 2 and then took over 75 days to post the application back to me with the late fee attached !!

Also Juvenal it is impossible to register a tenancy until you have a signed contract with the tenants and all of their details gathered and a signed form completed. this obviously cant happen before the tenancy starts and details are provided by the tenants!!!

EKRIUQ

I'm sure there's the postal rule that you could argue your case with as it is Irish statue.

The postal rule is a term of common law contracts which determines the timing of acceptance of an offer when mail is contemplated as the medium of acceptance. The general principle is that a contract is formed when acceptance is actually communicated to the offeror. The mailbox rule is an exception to the general principle. The postal rule provides that the contract is formed when a properly prepaid and properly addressed letter of acceptance is posted.

Fighting Irish

clevtrev wrote: »

Just arrived home off holidays to get a letter from this shower looking for a late registration fee. I sent the registration on the 23rd of Dec for a tenancy that kicked off on the 28th of Nov. They say that they received it on the 2nd of Jan and they have stamped it with this date. The rule is that it must be registered within a month of the start of the tenancy or they double the registration fee. The mail isn't great over Christmas but it is unlikely that it took this long to arrive in the PRTB office. Anway I never heard of an Irish government department being such sticklers before other than maybe revenue for VAT.

I'll call and complain to them on Wednesday but just wondering if I have any way to contest this late fee with them as I m sure if they have the cheek to issue this fee in the first place then they are unlikely to back down. they are obviously trying to maximise revenues in order to justify their miserable existence

Also just to add insult to injury it took them over 2 months to return my application to me with the late fee attached and in the interim I am not registered

Sure what if we all sent our sh1t in late

mickoneill30

mikemac wrote: »

I listed these days with no service and the weekend days and you repeat them back to me?

I started my post before your edit obviously. Where it didn't list the days with no service. Sorry for bothering you.:rolleyes:

Salome

In order for the postal rule to apply, the OP would need proof of postage.

MysticalSoul

You won't have a leg to stand on I'm afraid, as has already been stated, you were cutting it fine, and I doubt that the form was "sitting in their tray" during Christmas. Where I work, we were closed till Monday 5th Jan. Most companies are closed until 2nd Jan, so it was your responsibility to check this out.

surveys

MysticalSoul wrote: »

You won't have a leg to stand on I'm afraid, as has already been stated, you were cutting it fine, and I doubt that the form was "sitting in their tray" during Christmas. Where I work, we were closed till Monday 5th Jan. Most companies are closed until 2nd Jan, so it was your responsibility to check this out.

I have to sympathise somewhat with the original poster of this thread.
Im my case a dispute was posted by registered mail on the 16th March (Monday) which took An Post three days to deliver. It was signed for by the PRTB on that day the 19th but apparantly date stamped on the 25th. ! Six days to date stamp a document in their possession. ? They now insist that the date of receipt by them is the 25th not the 19th. ! Anyway I suppose why argue about 6 days when the whole case will probably take many months for them to resolve. According to some members on Boards it could even take over a year. ! When I finally managed to speak to somebody in the PRTB today it turned out that they had been unable to 'find' my documents because they had not yet turned up on the system. ! i.e; although they date stamped it on the 25th, as of today it had still not been entered into the sytem, 12 days later, and quite probably will sit there for many more 12 day periods before it is finally logged on. !! What an absolute shambles they are. !

BT, Eircom, ESB, An Post, and many many more such 'services' should now include the PRTB, who will probably end up being the No.1. in any list of bad service companies. ! Although judged by my recent experiences of Eircom, they still have a way to go before they could emulate Eircom's bad service. !