LANDLORD CONVERTING OUR SITTING ROOM TO BEDROOM

Not everyone will have seen your help desk thread so it's key information that each of the 3 tenants in the 3 bed house has their own lease with the landlord.

Ah, FFS. I say this as a landlord - it’s bastards like this that give the rest of us a bad name. Unfortunately, I suspect there’s not a lot you can do about this, but it’s shocking behaviour.

OP get onto Threshold. They should be able to give you advice on it

See above (and help desk thread). Three people living in a 3 bed house. All with their own leases with the non resident landlord

A previous landlord of mine was doing this, to maximise rent yield.

Anyone renting the converted dining room had to endure all types of noise from the shared living areas.

He then tried to do everything on the cheap, included cutting the grass himself, and billing himself for the work.

That lark ended one day, he was using a petrol mower, stuck his hand underneath to clear grass... he lost 3 fingers.

How do you work out that they're a licensee ?

Does your agreement allow you access to the sitting room or does it make any reference to any other part of the house outside of your room?

False

Licences | Residential Tenancies Board (rtb.ie) defines a licensee as "...3 - persons occupying accommodation in which the owner is not resident under a formal license arrangement with the owner where the occupants are not entitled to its exclusive use and the owner has continuing access to the accommodation and/or can move around or change the occupants,...."

I'll stick to the advice offered by the RTB that I linked above, showing that a non resident landlord is not disbarring the fact that the "tenants" are in fact licensees.

I would look for something else where. If they are willing to convert the sitting room today, they will be looking at other ways to make more money tomorrow. Ie, increase of rent despite what they say or barely fixing anything.

For goodness sake, have you contacted Threshold yet. All three of you ate tenants, not jointly and severally liable as each of you have your own contracts. Part of that contract is that the common areas are shared by only the 3 of you. Stop this in its tracks, contact Threshold, this is a serious case of a Breach of Landlord's obligations, it can go to the RTB

Thats shocking. Did the 3 of you sign the tenancy agreement and move in at the same time? If you did you are entitled to peaceful enjoyment of your home and the landlord cant do that. It depends on your lease though.

If you rented a room then you’re a licensee, similar to paying for a room in a guest house, if there’s one lease with three names of the people staying on it then he can’t come in and do any major changes like this.

it’s important that you define it, have you an individual lease with the landlord or did the three of you decide to find a house and rent it together?

Or did you just see a room advertised, show up not sign a lease and start paying rent? This was a common practice back in the 90’s/ early 2000’s when I was doing house shares, don’t think I ever signed a lease.