Rent a Room Scheme Experiences

Shared kitchen means the landlord and tenant are living in the same dwelling.

So what if there was a kitchenette in the converted garage, but there is still the same shared entrance into the house.

Liscencee still has access to main kitchen but en suite bathroom with shower in converted garage.

Perhaps just set reasonable expectations about visitors when renting the room out. It does seem onerous but its a bit unique if you have children in the house a couple of days a week.

To be fair, when we were small my grandmother had a lodger - in fact they had lodgers for years, as far back as when my mother was a baby. I ended up renting an apartment for 11 years from the widow of that first lodger of theirs. I don't think they had major issues but obviously 1950s and 1970s were different times.

You just need to really talk to whoever is coming to look at the room to get a good idea of what their lifestyle is like, and ensure its someone whose lifestyle isn't going to wildly conflict with yours.

So what if the owner occupier of the house can use the kitchen and kitchenette plus the licencee can use both also.

What’s the craic there?

Meaning what exactly?

Who would be looking at it?

Where are you getting this info from?

If the licensee has access to the kitchen but doesn't use it how do they determine the reality and have they ever done so?

Licencsee has access to the kitchen. That's the reality.

If all it took to deny the RTB jurisdiction was for one party to claim that the other was a licensee, there would be no RTB.

The dispute you are proposing is over whether a person is a licensee or tenant. Who do you think would decide that?

Your scenario is not really proposing a shared kitchen. You are proposing what you think is a "loophole" i.e. a claim that the owner also uses the tenants separate kitchen. Such a claim would be assessed as to whether it is actually the reality or not.

At no point did I comment on specifics of your own intentions or cunning plans to beat the system. I'm only trying to tell you that - where there is a dispute as to the status of the tenant/licensee - those making the decision will look at the reality, not the paperwork.

If the reality reflects what you are claiming then you will be ok. If the granny flat you rented out is connected to the main house by an always locked door, and your "licensee agreement" contains a clause to the effect that you the landlord is allowed to go in to use the supplied George Foreman grill whenever they want, but obviously never do because you have your own fully fitted kitchen in the main house, then you likely won't be ok.

In the same way,if you rent out your studio or 1-bed apartment to a couple, insert a clause into a "licensee agreement" that you can stay there whenever you like, feck off to Australia for 2 years, come back and try to summarily evict your "licensees", well if they resist and take a case, the reality of the situation will be that they will be found to be tenants.

Anyone is free to proceed with their own "ingenious loophole" if they so wish. If they subsequently run into trouble and learn the hard way that it wasn't quite the get-out-of-jail free card that they hoped, then so be it. Lesson learned.

Some landlords are homeless now because a tenant is in their house and wont move out.

Imagine if you rented a room in your house and they turned out to be a nightmare and were supported by the RTB and then you are the one who has to move out of your own house.

Or even just not being able to get someone you dont get on with out from under yours and your familys roof.

Nobody is going to do rent a room scheme in their own home if thats the case. Get ready for all the rent a room evictions if anything like that even looked remotely possible.

In fairness, I would say the scenario where a landlord takes in a lodger and then the RTB rule that the landlord (who has been playing by the rules) must move out is very rare.

SF bill about licensees. Maybe some owner occupiers doing RaR would be ok with these rules and being answerable to the RTB but its hard to see how SF think this would help to increase the supply of rooms to rent.

/https://www.rtb.ie/downloads/tribunal-report/TR0822-005657-DR0222-75623_Report.pdf

Trying to find out why that's relevant to rent a room licensees.

Line 3 of section 5 says it was a tenancy agreement.

Later on it says its not the landlords residence. So not "rent a room".

Read the rest of it. The landlord had claimed it was rent a room. Access to a shared kitchenette was involved!

Have you even read it yourself. It is in no way the same thing. This was a building with different floors and with other commercial tenants. And all sorts of other things that im not going to wast e my time pointing out for you, since its your link and really you should have read before posting instead of wasting everyones time.

Imagine the massive numbers of rent a roomers being asked to leave all at once.

2 or 3 years to get an absolute horror show to move out of your living room and kitchen. What a nightmare.

They have notice periods of 30 days / 60 days / 75 days in the doc and for some reason, shorter notice periods if the notice is given by the licensee. Not sure how enforceable that is. With current tenant agreements people overhold all the time and the RTB / government don't seem to care.

I rent out a couple of rooms in my house. I've told them they need to give me a month notice and I'd give them a months notice when finishing up. With the exception that if they do something that breaks the rules of the house then the notice could be much shorter. That exception seems incompatible with the bill. So if it became law I'd be happy enough for the current licensees to stay as I now know them well and we have no issues. But they'd be the last licensees we have.

There needs to be increased security for licencees which I think is fair if landlords are getting a tax-free income out of it, but not to the extent that the majority of landlords leave the market. Needs to be balanced.

I did this for years with mixed success. I’d bought my first house on my own and it really helped with the mortgage. Try to avoid anyone working in building or other trades which are likely to mean they arrive home very dirty . People aren’t so fussy about mucking up other people’s carpets etc . Middle aged men are likely to have been kicked out of the family home , you have to ask yourself why . Younger people are generally noisier. My best licensee was middle aged woman who was a very respectable tidy person and went home to visit her mother every weekend. My worst was a middle aged builder who lived like a pig and 2 years after I kicked him out had guards knocking on the door looking for him . Very nice man to speak to and paid for any damage caused without complaint but just mental . He was only with me a few months and in that time he wrote off 2 brand new cars drink driving . Stick with your instincts, if someone doesn’t feel right , choose someone else .

Middle aged men often leave family homes through no fault of their own. Not a nice assumption.

They are not the cause of all marriage breakdowns, women do a fine job of instigating things themselves just perfectly sometimes.

But anyway your home, the buck does stop with you.

If a person rents a room in someone's home, it is likely to come with certain conditions required by the home owner. If the conditions don't suit, they look for an alternative, it's up to the person to choose whatever suits their needs best. Not all room rentals are tax free.

Imo the SF bill would reduce availability for people who want part-week, full board & lodgings (digs), room only, room & facilities etc. just some of the options people want. Home-owners are flexible but also need to suit their own family situation. If they were required to become landlords with restrictions placed on their ppr - that's very different to having a paying guest.

People who let rooms to lodgers/licensees are not landlords, otherwise why not call someone who lets rooms in a hotel, guest house or b&b a landlord? Language in the rental market can get very confusing and have serious consequences.

My understanding is that a landlord is the party who owns lands or buildings, and grants a lease to another party for exclusive possession, for an agreed duration, in return for rent. A tenant is the person who has a right to exclusive possession, granted by the landlord by way of a lease, to occupy the land or building on a temporary basis in return for payment of rent.

A licence doesn't grant exclusive possession, just permission from the owner that a person can enter, or occupy, subject to terms agreed, and for payment. Otherwise wouldn't a person be there without permission and therefore trespassing.

SF's bill wants to amend the rta to bring in licensees and give them similar rights to tenants and also force every owner who lets rooms to become a landlord because they would have to comply with all rules in the rta. It is not balanced and would erode owners rights, as clearly there's no way an owner could say - hold on a minute now, that part of the rta doesn't apply to me. They would be bound by the whole rta and other legislation in the rental sector. Its bonkers.

While there might be a case for toning down the bill in certain areas, I think most people would agree that some form of regulation is necessary. RTB, while not perfect, is probably the best organization to do this.

I would predict that while a lot of licensors might moan a little about the bill in advance of its enactment and even in some cases threaten eviction, when push comes to shove the tax-free money will win out and landlords will get used to and accept the bit of extra regulation that the proposed bill entails.