Rent Review Notice - 3 similar dwellings

Cole

Hi folks,

Looking for a bit of advice here. I'm a landlord and am about to give my tenants their formal (I've already spoken to them) rent review notice. 

I thought a quick online search would give me 3 similar properties to justify the increase, but I can't find any similar (3 bed semi) in my Dublin commuter belt town (RPZ). All I can find are 2 bed apartments in the town...so 'similar' in terms of location but not type. Or I could try to locate 3 bed semis in a neighbouring town (also in a RPZ)...'similar' in terms of property type but not location as it generally has slightly higher rent prices. 

Any ideas?
Thanks

Samuel T. Cogley

Throw in a mix of stuff. Are the two bed apartments lower or higher rent than your gaffe?

Cole

Thanks for the quick reply. They're (depressingly) higher in rent.

GGTrek

Cole wrote: »

Hi folks,

Looking for a bit of advice here. I'm a landlord and am about to give my tenants their formal (I've already spoken to them) rent review notice. 

I thought a quick online search would give me 3 similar properties to justify the increase, but I can't find any similar (3 bed semi) in my Dublin commuter belt town (RPZ). All I can find are 2 bed apartments in the town...so 'similar' in terms of location but not type. Or I could try to locate 3 bed semis in a neighbouring town (also in a RPZ)...'similar' in terms of property type but not location as it generally has slightly higher rent prices. 

Any ideas?
Thanks

The RTA allows you to select the 3 similar properties over a period of 28 days before the serving date of the rent review notice. So my very strong suggestion is to check online over this period and collect evidence if you cannot find any (for example printouts from Daft.ie). In addition I suggest you to write the notice in the following way to be on the very safe side:

1) Download the sample notice of the RTB here: https://onestopshop.rtb.ie/images/uploads/general/RPZ_Rent_review_sample_notice.docx
2) Fill in the notice with the tenant details, dwelling details and rent details and rent calculation. Add a reference to the rent, location and a short description for each of similar dwellings in the notice
3) Add a page number to each page in this way (example): page 1 of 8, page 2 of 8, ....
4) Get a printscreen of the ad webpage of each similar dwelling (daft puts a date in the ad) and copy the image into page 3, 4, ... of the notice
5) Print two copies of the notice
6) Sign each single page of the notice next to the page number
7) Serve it to the tenant and ask him to sign each single page on a copy that he/she will return to you. If he/she is not willing to sign it then big alarm bells should go off and you go back with a witness to testify the delivery and take a photo of each page of the notice in front of the front door of the dwelling

I am telling you this because some smart ... tenant took a landlord to RTB for a rent review complaining and appealing (among other things) about the comparation with similar dwellings:
https://www.rtb.ie/docs/default-source/tribunal-reports/tr0317-002276-dr0217-32089-report.pdf?sfvrsn=0

I suggest you to read it all (especially the effort you need to show and collect evidence that you could not find three comparable dwellings), the RTB adjudicators will rule pro-tenant, look below at their totally pro-tenant interpretation of the RTA 2015 and 2016 which are absolutely badly drafted and anti-landlord but the adjudicators cannot care less!
"Unfortunately for the Respondent Landlord, however, the legislation is clear that what must be specified in a notice is the rent sought for a dwelling, within the relevant period. It does not deal with situations where that is difficult to comply with. As such, even where compliance with the provisions of the Act may be onerous, the wording of the Act is still determinative to the Tribunal."

There was also another Tribunal determination in November 17 (unfortunately the RTB has messed up the RTB disputes database) where the Tribunal accepted URL links to the similar dwellings since the RTA does not specify how the similar dwellings should be specified in the rent review notice, however they suggested that a hard copy printout would be much better evidence.

The amount of bureaucracy for a tenancy is at stellar levels at the moment and the rents reflect this, since the admin costs have increased massively in the past few years, this is all due to Irish govvie interference with the market.