Registration Enforcement

lovehathi

Hi Everyone,

So today I received this letter with the above title and reference number. It has come to our attention that a tenancy has not been registered. And this notice is served?

Here we left house year and half ago after loosing the job for higher studies in the USA. I was living with my family and brother in that house. After we left the house. My brother and his family are still living in the house. He Rented one room under rent a room scheme, i.e., what I thought.

Do I still have to register my brother and the renter? Also, why was this letter served? Did someone complain? Or the ad I placed on daft looking for the renter.

So how to resolve this issue tried to call the office but no answer

Thanks

fritzelly

You need to clarify the ownership here - not clear from your post

Sounds like you own the house and so why would you think renting to family excludes you from the law?

DubCount

This is a very confused situation. The relationships need to be worked out first. Who is paying rent to who. Is the brother a part owner in the property or a tenant. Is the new tenant a joint tenant or a sub tenant of the brother. The only thing that strikes me is that the Rent A Room Scheme is for renting out a room or rooms in your principle private residence, so if OP is not living in the property, I'm not sure how they are availing of that.

lovehathi

Thanks for all the reply. So I own the house. He is my real brother. He is living in there not as a tenant but as a family member. He took the tenant.

I assumed the family member is considered as same as owner and if family member is in house the tenant become house sharer?

thanks

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118356076#Comment_118356076

You thought wrong.  The family member must be your civil partner, parent or child, not your brother.

Subject to  section 4(2)  , this Act does not apply to any of the following dwellings—

h) a dwelling within which the spouse F4 [ , civil partner within the meaning of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 ], parent or child of the landlord resides and no lease or tenancy agreement in writing has been entered into by any person resident in the dwelling,

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118356076#Comment_118356076

Answer is dependant on whether you charge your brother rent or not (allow for a broad interpretation of the meaning of the word rent). If yes, the tenancy must be registered and your brother can claim rent a room on rent received by him.

If no, there is no tenancy to register, you can reply stating so. However, your brother can still claim rent a room.

lovehathi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357701#Comment_118357701

Thanks, for everyone's reply. So if i have to register him . What do i say no rent as i don't charge him anything. Thanks

lovehathi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359115#Comment_118359115

Thanks for the reply. No i don't charge him any rent. Also if you know how come rtb sent letter now when he used to live me before.?

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359294#Comment_118359294

You can ask the RTB if you wish, but I wouldn't waste much time on it. Someone brought it to their attention more than likely. But write a letter stating there is no tenancy to register, giving a little detail of the situation of the property.

dennyk

If you own the house and your brother's name is not on the deed, and you are not currently living in the property, then your brother is legally your tenant, whether he's paying you rent or not, and technically you would need to register that tenancy with the RTB. When you were still living in the property yourself, your brother would have been your licensee, not a tenant, and no tenancy would have existed at that time, but once you moved out and he became the sole occupant, it became a tenancy.

Now, there are some tricky bits here that could come back to bite you and your brother:

• As noted, you would need to register this tenancy with the RTB, and you might get fined if you don't.
• Your brother has taken in a licensee. As your brother is a tenant and has Part 4 rights, his licensee can also request to become your tenant once he has lived there for six months, and you cannot unreasonably refuse that request. It may have been your brother's lodger who contacted the RTB about your brother's tenancy not being registered because he intends to make this request. Once this lodger becomes your tenant, they will have full Part 4 rights like any other tenant would, and your brother will no longer be able to end their tenancy.
• As your brother is not paying rent, he will likely owe Capital Acquisitions Tax on the market value of the rent for the property in question which you are gifting him. This value will be set against his lifetime Group B threshold of €32,500, but once he has exceeded that threshold (which applies to all gifts or inheritances he receives from anyone in the Group B category in aggregate over his entire life), he will start having to pay CAT. Depending on the value of your property on the current rental market, he could well be approaching that threshold just based on his rent alone at this point, or even past it; if the place is a 2+ bedroom in or around Dublin, for instance, it could well be valued at a couple grand a month or more, so a year and a half of rent could be €36k or more. Once you have registered his tenancy with the RTB, it's likely that Revenue will eventually learn of his free rent and may go after him for those taxes if he doesn't start paying them once he is past the threshold.

Marcusm

Dennyk, are you sure? The property is not a”dwelling” as it is not let for rent or other valuable consideration by the owner and the owner is not a “landlord” as he is not entitled to rent in respect of a dwelling. The subletting by the brother might be a tenancy in the ordinary meaning but the only person entitled to rent us that brother and thus he might be a landlord in respect of the sub-tenant but RTA equally does not apply as the putative landlord occupies the property with the sub-tenant.

In addition, as the brother/brother is not a landlord/tenant relationship the no part 4 tenancy arises to the brother meaning that the sub-tenant cannot obtain part 4 rights either.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373175#Comment_118373175

It would seem absurd that youd have to pay tax to live in a house that someone is allowing you to live in for free. I have never heard of anyone paying such a tax

Emma2019

If you are giving someone free use of your property it is a taxable event for CAT.

The small gift exemption of €3,000 would be helpful though, but I would suspect that the market value of the rent is in excess of that.

JimmyVik

OP, Ive seen this before.

The easy way out of it is that you pay and have been paying your brother with free holidays to visit you, food etc in turn for him "minding and maintaining" your property while you are away. If he took on someone under the rent a room scheme then thats up to him and nothing to do with the RTB as long as it is satisfies the rent a room criteria. If not, its his issue.

So dont even bother answering the RTB.

My guess is the person your brother has rented to wants to be a tenant and has reported it to chance their arm.

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118372393#Comment_118372393

Good point regarding the brothers tax, but I am 100% certain there needs to be rent or equivalent for the Residential Tenancies Act to apply.

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118385176#Comment_118385176

I am not sure in what context you have dealt with this before, but it is perfectly legal not to register possession of your property with the RTB, if no tenancy exists.

The OP can simply inform the RTB of this, I don't know if they still have a operating phone line due to covid, but their email address should be operating (although slower response times).

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118385559#Comment_118385559

I was telling the OP to just burn the letter and ignore the RTB. Dont waste your time with them OP. You have nothing to do with them.

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118385954#Comment_118385954

The next stage in the process is to bring court proceedings against the OP.

It just seems ridiculous not to change the information the RTB are acting on to avoid the hassle of going to court.

lovehathi

Thanks everyone. Its confusing. I have been emailing them ,but no reply so far. Guess everything is closed till Jan3rd.

Seems best solution is keep brother in house . Let other go. and show rent 1 euros. I assume i can decide of rent amount.

thanks

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118387291#Comment_118387291

There is no tax due by you if you provide the property rent free.

Your brother should get an accountant to advise, he will be deemed to be in receipt of the market value rent of the property rather than on the rent paid to you.

But there are a lot of factors which would determine how much gift tax he would have to pay, given how the MV of the gift would be assessed (there is an element of caretaking involved), the tax free annual allowance and lifetime group b threshold. It is likely no gift tax would be immediately payable in the initial years.

Rent a room claimed by your brother will not impact the above.

Be very careful about trying to avoid tax... unless you run it by a tax advisor.

holliehobbie

They are probably closed until the 4th of January as the 3rd is a Bank Holiday.

HalfAndHalf

Assume your brother has rented the room to gain some form of income. Surely he realised that would put him on the RTB and in turn Revenue’s radar?

As mentioned, your brother needs to speak to an accountant and should inform the RTB of what he’s done or it will come back on yourself.

doc22

IF letting the property for free would the market value rent of the property not be deemed income on the OP in Revenues eyes rather than a CAT on brother. Thats was my first thought....

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118386227#Comment_118386227

They aree just threatening letters. Anyone could send them. Ignore them. They will be luaghed at if they try to bring a person in a foreign jurisdiction to court for something they have no case against them for. They are too lazy to do their job. The OP shouldnt even be entertaining that shower of wasters.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118387291#Comment_118387291

No dont take rent off him. People are overthinking this. Pay him instead, a nominal amount for minding your house and maintaining it. That way you've no tax issues.

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118389614#Comment_118389614

Thank you for your input but I'm not sure I can add anything further to help you!

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118390446#Comment_118390446

You can help us all by educating yourself.

You seem to think the RTB have some sort of power to take the OP to court.

They dont. But dont let that get in the way you your dramatic replies.

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118390966#Comment_118390966

I think you are trolling, but ironically your inability to put together a few legible sentences seems authentic.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/landlord-fined-prtb-not-registering-tenants-1763664-Nov2014/%3famp%3D1

https://www.rtb.ie/register-a-tenancy/why-register/penalties-for-not-registering

It appears that despite what you have stated, they can and have taken offenders to court.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118393090#Comment_118393090

You are the one who is trolling.

Pure scaremongering is what you are at.

Show us where the OP has done something that they will drag him to court for? Especially from another country.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118372393#Comment_118372393

Don't know where people are getting the idea that the licencee has to be living in the property for 6 months to get on the tenancy. The statute on a licence living with a tenant says that the licencee can apply when there's a Part 4 tenancy. Since a licencee has no rights how can they get part 4 tenancy? Once the there's a part 4 lease on a property there can't be any licencees in it.

(7) A person who is lawfully in occupation of the dwelling concerned as a licensee of the tenant or the multiple tenants, as the case may be, during the subsistence of a  Part 4  tenancy may request the landlord of the dwelling to allow him or her to become a tenant of the dwelling.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2004/act/27/section/50/enacted/en/html

OP it looks like your brother is after screwing one or both of you by trying to get €14k tax free on the rent a room scheme while living rent free. If the RTB don't get one of you Revenue will.

DFB-D

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118394769#Comment_118394769

This is not hard. The RTB has incorrect information regarding the OP, otherwise they will proceed with enforcement.

Somehow the information the RTB has on the OP needs to change. Generally this can be achieved by communication channels such postal, email or to ring them.

Your solution is to ignore the letter (burn it as they are too lazy to do their jobs was your reasoning), which does not change the information the RTB has.

Equally foolish, the tax advice you gave leaves the OP's brother with the same tax issue but now has an additional income to declare instead of just using tax free thresholds to pay 0 tax. Cat on free use of a property is tricky to formulate, there are plenty of factors and anti avoidance measures. You should not do anything based on advice received from anyone other than an accountant or tax advisor, i.e. professionals.

So summary is write to the RTB and for the brother to go to an accountant. Which part do you find to be scaremongering?

You can guess as to whom I think needs to educate themselves?