The RTB found against a corporate landlord that added parking charges to sitting tenant’s rent

In November 2023, a tribunal at the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) ruled against Ireland’s biggest private landlord, saying it shouldn’t have added on extra car parking charges the way that it had.

The case, involving tenants in an apartment in Baker’s Yard in the north inner-city, was centered on rent arrears.

I-RES Reit, the landlord, had issued an eviction notice and, in totting up what it was owed, had included €50 a month in parking charges.

But the tenants had been using the car-parking space that came with their rented apartment for years before any charge for it was introduced, the tribunal report says.

The landlord’s representative told the tribunal that the tenant had parked for free for eight years, but that it had brought in a new policy to charge for parking, the report says. The company introduced the charge in 2021, after an audit.

But that was in effect an illegal rent review, the tribunal found.

Gavin Elliott, a solicitor with Community Law and Mediation, said that as he sees it, if the RTB allowed any extra charges to be introduced, it would be a slippery slope.

“Landlords could start charging for all kinds of things,” he says, which would undermine the point of having rent control.

In an update issued in April on its review looking at how to unlock value for shareholders, I-RES Reit says it sees, among other opportunities, “further potential of revenue generation from car parking”.

A spokesperson for I-RES Reit said that it could “confirm that existing residents will not be charged additional fees for their current car parking spaces”.

It doesn’t comment on individual cases, they said. But “I-RES has and will continue to fully comply with all prevailing rental regulations, including restrictions around rental increases in RPZs”.

Some of the city’s biggest company landlords have in recent years been adding on charges. Social Democrats TD and housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan has asked what the government is doing to ensure corporate landlords aren’t using these to circumvent rent-pressure zone laws.

The findings

The RTB tribunal found that the parking space had been part of the property that the tenants were renting, and so it was included as part of their rent.

To increase the rent, the landlord would need to give 90 days written notice of a rent increase and that increase would need to be in line with the rent pressure zone rules, including the cap on increases.

In this case, both parties agreed that the landlord had not done that, it says.

The tenants also owed some rent, but because the landlord had added the parking charges, the rent arrears amount was wrong and so the termination notice was invalid, it says.

In their ruling, the RTB did leave open the possibility that in another situation, that add-on charge might have been allowed.

“For clarity, if it was the case that the dwelling was previously without a parking space and the Landlord subsequently made one available to the Tenant then it may well be within the scope of the Landlord to charge for same,” it says.

Gareth Redmond, a research and policy officer at the housing charity Threshold, said, “It’s good that there is a definitive decision that this was seen as part of the rent.”

“But it’s not clear if these charges could then be added to a new tenant,” he says.

What’s in the contract?

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing says that whether charges are allowed depends on what is in the contract between the tenant and the landlord.

“Contract law governs such arrangements,” says the spokesperson. “The specific terms associated with an individual tenant’s rights and obligations are likely to be set out in a written contract signed by both the tenant and the landlord.”

But that doesn’t directly address the issue of whether charges added between tenancies breach the rules for rent pressure zones, including the rent caps.

Redmond, of Threshold, says that he previously successfully represented tenants in a case at the RTB when a landlord tried to pass on the property management fees to the tenant during a tenancy, arguing it was a breach of EU legislation, governing Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts.

“A contractual term that has not been individually negotiated is regarded as unfair if it causes a significant imbalance in the parties rights and obligations,” he says.

Not just I-RES Reit

It’s not just I-RES Reit that has charges. A subsidiary connected to LRC Group has added on car parking and service charges.

Last year, Aparto, the student housing operator owned by Hines, began to add on “room charges” to their rents, mirroring action taken by provider Yugo the previous year.

In March 2023, Social Democrats TD and housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan asked the Minister for Housing in the Dáil what the government was doing to ensure that corporate landlords are not using extra charges on top of the rent to circumvent rent-pressure zone laws.

He cited the case of Aparto.

The Minister for State, Fine Gael TD, Kieran O’Donnell responded saying that it depends on the contract between the landlord and the tenant and tenants can refer their dispute to the RTB.

Elliott, the solicitor with Community Law and Mediation, says he doesn’t think students should accept the fees if the fees and rent added together would grow by more than is allowed by rent control rules. “They would be well advised to file a dispute with the RTB.”

Rent control applies to the home, regardless of whether the tenant changes, says Elliot.

“Whatever was included for the previous tenant should stay the same for the next tenant,” he says. “All rent increases need to be within the RPZ rules.”

Redmond and Elliott both say that the meaning of “rent” needs to be defined in the legislation. That would help to address the issue of rising extra charges, they said.