The RTB Can Investigate You Without a Complaint

Most of the attention this autumn went to the RTB’s new power to fine landlords directly, without a hearing. That is real, and we covered it in the piece on fixed payment notices. But it is the smaller of the RTB’s two enforcement powers, and the larger one gets far less attention than it deserves.

The RTB can open an investigation into a landlord, decide that improper conduct occurred, and impose a financial sanction of up to €15,000 for each breach — plus costs of up to a further €15,000 for each breach.

And it does not need anybody to complain first.

No tenant has to report you

This is the part landlords consistently get wrong. The common assumption is that RTB enforcement starts when a tenant makes a complaint, so a landlord with a happy tenant has nothing to worry about.

The RTB can act on its own initiative, or after a report, or after a formal complaint. A report can come from anyone. And several of the breaches it enforces are visible to the RTB from its own records without anybody saying a word — whether a tenancy is registered, whether the details were updated, whether a rent review notice arrived.

A tenancy that is not registered is not a secret waiting to be told. It is an absence in a database the RTB owns.

The eleven breaches it can investigate

The RTB’s investigation power is not open-ended. It covers a defined list of “improper conduct” by landlords:

1. Setting rent higher than permitted
2. Incorrectly claiming a rent exemption
3. Failing to comply with rent setting rules
4. Failing to notify the RTB of a rent exemption
5. Failing to register a tenancy
6. Failing to update tenancy details
7. Giving false or misleading reasons for ending a tenancy
8. Failing to offer a tenancy back to a previous tenant
9. Requesting a deposit of more than one month’s rent
10. Requesting advance rent beyond one month
11. Requiring a student in Student Specific Accommodation to sign a lease longer than 41 weeks, unless the student asked for it

Six of those eleven are about rent and registration. In a Rent Pressure Zone, which is all of Dublin, that is where the exposure sits.

Two tracks, not one

It is worth being clear about how the two powers relate, because they are easy to confuse. The RTB has stated that fixed payment notices are additional to its existing investigation and prosecution powers. They do not replace them.

• Fixed payment notice — €200 for a rent breach, €100 for the others. Issued directly. No hearing, no dispute, no tenant required.
• Investigation into improper conduct — a written caution, or a sanction of up to €15,000 per breach, plus costs of up to €15,000 per breach.

So the same underlying failure — an unregistered tenancy, say — can be dealt with as a €100 notice or as an investigation, depending on what the RTB finds and how serious it considers it. The notice is not a ceiling.

Per breach is the phrase that matters

€15,000 is the figure that gets quoted. The words that actually decide the number are “for each breach”.

A landlord with one unregistered tenancy has one problem. A landlord who has not been registering tenancies as a matter of habit, across several properties and several years, does not have one €15,000 exposure. They have a pattern, and each instance is capable of being counted.

That is the difference between an annoyance and something that changes what a portfolio is worth.

If you accept that it happened

Where a landlord admits improper conduct, the RTB operates an acknowledgement route: an Acknowledgement Form, which must be returned within 21 days.

Whether that is the right move in any particular case is a question for your own advisers, not for a web page. What is worth knowing is that the option exists and that it has a short clock on it.

The outcome does not stay private

The RTB publishes enforcement outcomes, including searchable investigation court orders and registration enforcement outcomes. Taken with the move to public adjudication hearings and published reports naming the parties and the property address, the direction is consistent: rental enforcement in Ireland is becoming a matter of public record rather than private correspondence.

For most landlords the financial sanction is not the part that stings.

Where Dublin landlords actually get caught

In practice, the realistic exposures are mundane:

• Registration that drifted. A tenancy registered at the start and never updated through rent changes, tenant changes or a new fixed term.
• Rent set from the wrong number. A rent review calculated off market rates rather than the Rent Pressure Zone formula, or an exemption claimed without the grounds for it.
• Notices served, but not to the RTB. Since 14 September 2026 a copy of a rent review notice must reach the RTB within seven days of serving the tenant. Before that date it had to be the same day. A notice that never reaches the RTB at all is still invalid.
• A deposit or advance rent above one month. Still common, and now explicitly on the list.

None of these require bad faith. They require a landlord who is busy, or an agent who was not paying attention.

Common questions

Can the RTB really start this without my tenant complaining?

Yes. The RTB can act on its own initiative, on a report from any source, or on a formal complaint. A good relationship with your tenant is not a defence to an unregistered tenancy.

Is €15,000 the most I can be sanctioned?

It is the maximum for a single breach, and costs of up to a further €15,000 per breach can be added. Multiple breaches are counted separately.

Does a fixed payment notice mean the matter is closed?

Not necessarily. The RTB has described fixed payment notices as additional to its investigation and prosecution powers rather than a substitute for them.

The RTB website says a rent review notice must reach the RTB the same day. Which is right?

Seven days. The rule changed on 14 September 2026, and some RTB guidance pages still carry the older same-day wording. Where guidance and the current rule disagree, work to the rule — and keep evidence of when you served both the tenant and the RTB.

We use a letting agent. Does that move the exposure?

The obligations sit with the landlord. An agent who gets it wrong creates a problem that is still yours, which is the argument for knowing how your agent handles registration and rent reviews rather than assuming.

Not sure where your tenancies actually stand?

Most landlords who find a problem here find it years after it started. If you are not certain that every tenancy is registered, that the details are current, and that every rent review was calculated and served correctly, that is an afternoon’s work to check and a great deal more to unwind later. We go through exactly that on a free property visit.