The tenant offered to pay market rates to prevent me from selling a property in a rental pressure area. What can I do? – Irish weather

Our tenant pays around 70 percent of the market rent because it is in a rental pressure zone (RPZ). We have decided to sell the house because it is not economically viable to own it and we have filed an eviction notice. The tenant offered us full rent, an increase of more than 40 percent, if he can stay in the house for another three or four years. The tenant then plans to retire abroad and does not want to have to move in the meantime.

Although the government introduced RPZs in 2016 with the best of intentions, the reality unfortunately is that this has backfired somewhat, and your situation is a good example of this.

The introduction of temporary rental zones has led to a situation in which a considerable number of landlords receive a monthly rent significantly below the market rate from their current tenants. To top it off, the landlord is also not allowed to increase the rent beyond the laws and calculations of temporary rental zones, even if his current tenants leave and he creates a new lease with new tenants .

One of the other unintended consequences of this legislation is that the capital value of properties is also affected. In many cases, when a property is placed on the market in an RPZ, this excludes investors as potential buyers because the property has no real value to them. That said, it could be argued that this means other types of buyers, like first-time buyers, may not have to compete with investors when looking at certain properties. This is, however, little consolation to a seller who has purchased a property as part of their pension and wants to maximize their final sale price.

The fact that the tenant has voluntarily offered the market rent makes absolutely no difference. You are still not allowed to increase the rent in any way other than what the RPZ calculations allow, even if there is a mutual agreement between the landlord and tenant on the matter. I have represented landlords in disputes before the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) where the relationship between the landlord and tenant had broken down and where, even though a rent had been agreed in the past, the landlord ended up having to refund the tenant all the rent overpaid beyond the RPZ calculation.

Therefore, given all this information, the obvious answer here is that you cannot do this and under no circumstances should you enter into an agreement proposed by the tenant that is against the RPZ laws. You can also direct them to the RTB website so that they understand that you are not being unreasonable about their proposal.

Another point worth mentioning is that you did not serve an eviction notice as you wrote. You sent the tenant a termination of lease in an attempt to sell your property. The word eviction can sometimes conjure up the wrong image of a landlord illegally removing a tenant from a property, which you are not doing here.

Finally, the task of issuing a valid lease termination to a landlord who wishes to sell their property has many strict steps that you must follow. Therefore, if in doubt, you should seek professional advice. For example, you must send the original statutory declaration with the tenancy termination to the tenants and not a copy. You must also send a copy of the complete notice served to the tenants to the RTB on the same day, otherwise you will invalidate the notice.

Marcus O’Connor is a licensed surveyor and member of the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland

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