We were interested to read this week of an application to the Circuit Court by the Private Residential Tenancies Board to enforce one of its orders.
The application was brought on behalf of a landlord in relation to arrears of rent. The PRTB were seeking enforcement of their order for rent arrears and possession of the property. The Court heard that the tenant had not paid rent since 2011 and remained in possession of the property, building up very substantial arrears of almost €42,000. Judge Linnane directed that the tenant vacate the property within seven days of being served with the court order and granted judgment against the tenant for €41,809 and costs.
This situation is any landlord’s worst nightmare. It well illustrates the lengthy delays that landlords can face in securing final resolution of a dispute with their tenant. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the landlord in that case will be able to recover all the monies he is owed despite obtaining a judgment and an order for his costs.
We recently represented a client before the Tenancy Tribunal of the PRTB. The other side put a proposal to us to settle the case prior to the hearing and we advised our client as to whether or not we would recommend the proposal to him. One factor in our advice to our client during settlement negotiations was that in circumstances where the other side did not comply with any order made by the Tribunal, enforcement of the order would add further costs and delay. The client ultimately decided that he was happy to accept the proposal and the case settled with our client receiving a favourable sum by way of damages.
It is unfortunate that a potential difficulty with enforcement must be taken into account in such cases. However, it has to be an important consideration where such enforcement could take a considerable time and be ultimately unrewarded.
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