Landlords to give Increased Notice to Quit to Tenants under Changes to Law
New measures are to be introduced to compel landlords of residential properties to give their tenants additional time to vacate their properties after Notice to Quit has been served.
These new regulations, to be introduced shortly into law, apply only where the landlord requires vacant possession to sell the property or live in it himself and do not apply where the landlord is seeking re-possession of the premises owing to non- payment of rent or where the tenant has been in breach of covenant for some time.
The Minister for Housing is clearly anxious to facilitate tenants further if they have to relinquish possession in a market where it is extremely difficult to obtain alternative or similar accommodation elsewhere.
The new law, when enacted, will greatly extend the amount of notice landlords must provide to tenants who have been renting a property for less than three years.
Tenants who are in a home less than six months must be given 90 days’ notice rather than the current 28 days’ notice under the proposed changes.
The notice period for those renting a property between 6 months and a year will now increase from three months to five months’ notice.
Tenants who have occupied a property for more than a year but less than three years, will be entitled to six months’ notice rather than four months’ notice as had been the case.
In addition, the new regulations require all landlords to send copies of any eviction notices they serve to the Residential Tenancies Board ( RTB) the authority who regulate the rental market. Landlords should note that failure to do so will render their notice to quite invalid.
The position as to notices served on those tenants in occupation over three years remains unchanged and is set out in the RTB regulations.