Residential termination notices increase 20 per cent following end of eviction ban

Landlords notified the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) of 5,735 notices of termination in the second quarter of this year, following the ending of a temporary moratorium on no-fault evictions.

There were 4,753 notices issued in the first quarter of 2023, and 4,329 in the last quarter of 2022.

Of the 5,735 notices in Q2, the majority (63.3 per cent) were in cases where the landlord intends to sell the property. A breach of tenant obligations was cited in 16.1 per cent of cases.

In 2.6 per cent of cases no reason was given, or the reason given was not specified in the appropriate legislation. Just over 85 per cent of the notices issued in the second quarter of 2023 fall due before the end of this year.

The government ended the eviction ban on April 1, and defended its move on the basis that extending it would have made the rental crisis worse.

“These figures show that the number of people at risk of homelessness is set to grow in the coming months leading to further rises in homelessness,” said Eoin Ó Broin, the Sinn Féin housing spokesperson.

“Government must immediately reintroduce the ban on no-fault evictions until such time as the numbers of people in emergency accommodation starts to fall.

“They need to deliver an additional quantum of social and affordable housing specifically, for those in emergency accommodation utilising emergency planning powers and new building technologies. And they must ramp up the social and cost rental tenant-in-situ schemes,” he added.

While there is a legal obligation on landlords to submit notices, they are self-reported, and the RTB figures contain only what it has received.

Notices also cannot be interpreted as directly correlating to one tenant or tenancy, as they may either be sent to each tenant in a residency or to the tenancy as a whole.

The government has previously criticised the opposition for directly linking notices with evictions.

Speaking to reporters in south Mayo, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the service of a notice does not always result in an eviction taking place.

In addition, he noted that not all notices served and copied to the RTB will be valid and tenants can dispute validity to the board.

“Also, the vast majority of people on whom a notice to quit is served are able to find alternative accommodation, somewhere else to rent,” Varadkar said.

“There are new tenancies being created all the time and that is encouraging too. I think the difficulty with the temporary eviction ban when it was in place was it didn’t reduce homelessness, and furthered the problem so that it became worse nature.

“And that’s not a solution, unfortunately. The solution is through more supply, it’s through the development of cost rental, which is government-provided affordable rent rental, it’s increasing the amount of social housing that we build, and also putting in place those rent pressure zones so people’s rents don’t increase by too much.”