Eviction nation: CATU guest post
The Week in Housing 20/06/25
The Community Action Tenants Union recently published a report linked to their eviction database project topevictors.ie. This project includes interactive maps of legal and illegal evictions, alongside profiles of some of the country’s most prolific evictors. The following post highlights some of the report’s key findings on illegal and legal evictions. The full CATU Eviction Nation report is available here. It provides greater detail on the findings outlined below, together with analysis of other important issues such as the loopholes associated with no-fault evictions. Huge thanks to the authors of the below piece: Fiadh Tubridy (CATU and Department of Geography, Maynooth University), Sam Mutter (CATU and Maynooth Data Stories project), and Danielle Hynes (CATU and Maynooth Data Stories project). Finally, CATU are also involved the Home not Hazards exhibition about Local Authority housing conditions, which opens June 28th.
Eviction Nation is a new report published by the Community Action Tenants Union Ireland (CATU) based on research by our members in collaboration with researchers from Maynooth University, Utrecht University and the University of Sheffield.
As per the title, the report focuses on evictions in Ireland. It responds to the lack of data and in-depth research on this issue, which is surprising given how (rightfully) central evictions are to debates about the housing crisis. The RTB data hub only provides basic, aggregate figures about the number of eviction notices served per quarter, with very little additional information about issues such as geographical patterns or what type of landlords are involved. There is also very little analysis of how disputes concerning evictions are dealt with by the RTB, one of the topics covered in the report and discussed below.
The report itself draws primarily on analysis of records of disputes between landlords and tenants dealt with by the RTB concerning legal and illegal evictions, which are made available through its online dispute database. This is a very valuable source of data, not least because it is the only publicly available data source which provides information about where evictions take place and about the identity of the landlords responsible. However, there are also drawbacks associated with relying on this database as a primary source of data associated with the undercounting of both legal and illegal evictions, which are discussed below in the post.
Illegal evictions
One of the headline findings of the report (picked up in media coverage) was that there have been 353 officially recorded illegal evictions from January 2015 - May 2024. This finding was based on a comprehensive analysis of 1,387 RTB cases in which ‘unlawful termination of tenancy’ was one of the reasons for the case being lodged.
Background research on these cases found that, with some notable exceptions, the vast majority of illegal evictions are carried out by what would typically be termed ‘small landlords’, meaning private individuals without significant business or property interests and with few other RTB cases to their name. It has previously been highlighted that there is a “culture of non-compliance” with tenancy law amongst small-scale landlords. The illegal eviction cases analysed for the report demonstrate examples of brutal and violent tactics being used to remove tenants from their home, demonstrating that the common narrative that small landlords are somehow benign when compared to corporate investors is not a universal truth.
Undercounting
While the number of ‘officially recorded’ illegal evictions was one important finding, an arguably more important point is that this is actually a massive undercounting of the true figure, due to the limited protection offered by current tenancy legislation and by the RTB.
The report finds that the RTB does not have one clear definition of an illegal eviction which is consistently applied across all cases. The most commonly used definition is that “an unlawful termination… may occur where a landlord, through force, intimidation or otherwise (such as cutting utilities or changing the locks) denies a tenant from accessing a rented dwelling or removes their belongings” (emphasis added).
However, in practice many instances where tenants are intimidated or harassed into leaving their homes are determined by the RTB not to be illegal evictions. One such instance comes from a case where a landlord (the infamous Marc Godart) entered a tenant’s bedroom, took his phone and tried to forcibly remove him from his home. This, understandably, caused the tenant to move out as soon as he could because he felt unsafe, seemingly a clear case of being intimidated into leaving.
However, despite recognising that the landlord’s actions were violent and intimidating, the RTB determined that this was not an illegal eviction because the tenant had not been physically removed from his home: “While [the tenant] may not have felt safe remaining in the dwelling as a result of the actions of the Appellant Landlord, his tenancy was not in fact actually terminated.” The report details many other instances where similar forms of intimidation that force tenants to leave their homes are judged not to constitute illegal evictions.
Other factors which contribute to the systemic undercounting of illegal evictions include the fact that tenancy legislation does not provide any protection to those who are judged to be licensees, (which is often a claim made by landlords specifically to benefit from lighter regulation). There are also many reasons why tenants who have been illegally evicted won’t take a case to the RTB, meaning these instances will never show up in official statistics, including the limited damages awarded (see below), a lack of awareness of their rights, and inequalities in access to legal representation.
Damages for illegal evictions
The report investigated the level of damages awarded for illegal evictions and how they were calculated. While the upper limit for damages that the RTB can award is currently €20,000, our research found that the mean average award across the cases was €3,912, with the vast majority of cases between €0 and €500.
The RTB does not award punitive damages. Therefore a fine is only imposed against a landlord if a tenant can evidence material damages directly caused by the illegal eviction. This means that if a tenant is illegally evicted but is seen to cope well, for example by finding new accommodation relatively nearby or at a similar rent, damages tend to be minimal.
The onus is also on tenants to produce receipts for material costs, for example temporary accommodation, storage costs, or the higher rent they currently pay. Without these, claims of damages based on more intangible costs such as mental wellbeing, stress and upset tend not to be accounted for appropriately. This particularly disadvantages tenants because, as opposed to landlords for whom the property is primarily an asset, this is their home, so eviction is always likely to have a high emotional cost.
Legal evictions
Another headline finding of the report is that between January 2015 and August 2025 the RTB issued 4,525 eviction orders, referring to RTB decisions where the tenant is ordered to vacate their home. The majority of these decisions arise from cases concerning overholding (where a tenant has remained in their home past the date specified on an eviction notice) and from disputes over the validity of eviction notices.
This is only a very small proportion of the total number of evictions that have taken place in the Republic of Ireland since 2015 because eviction orders only occur in cases where a dispute over an eviction has become the subject of an RTB case and the RTB has ruled in favour of the landlord. There were 15,084 eviction notices served by landlords between the end of June 2022 and the start of July 2024, while the total number of eviction orders for this period was 1,133. On this basis, we can estimate that our data reflects roughly 7.5% of all evictions.
The most useful feature of the eviction order data is that it allows us to identify which types of landlords are involved in carrying out evictions. In the report we identify four main categories of evictors: private/ individual landlords, company landlords, receivers and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs). The proportion of evictions linked to each category of landlord is shown below. This shows a general trend of a decreasing share of evictions linked to small-scale/individual landlords and an increase in the proportion associated with other types, especially corporate or company landlords.
As shown in the graph, the proportion of eviction orders granted on behalf of corporate landlords has increased significantly - from 1.2% in 2015 to 22% in 2024. Irish Residential Properties REIT plc (IRES), the country’s largest residential landlord, has also secured the greatest number of eviction orders (128). Based on the assumption that eviction orders represent approximately 7.5% of all evictions, this would mean that IRES could have been responsible for up to 1700 evictions since 2015.
In the report we highlight the range of business strategies adopted by corporate landlords. Despite some differences, these strategies frequently involve evicting tenants to maximise profits. For example, investors such as Broadhaven/Bain Capital and Lugus Capital developed a business model centred on ‘reno-victions’, i.e. where tenants are evicted to facilitate renovations and rent increases, while another major corporate landlord, LRC, frequently evicts tenants at the end of a Part 4 tenancy to free up the property and allow them to sell, renovate or potentially increase rents. Meanwhile, research on IRES has shown they use the RTB as part of their business model to swiftly and efficiently deal with ‘problem tenants’, such as those who fall into arrears.
Alongside corporate landlords, AHBs, which were brought under the remit of the RTB in 2016, are also responsible for a significant number of evictions. The proportion of evictions linked to AHBs increased from 1% in 2016 to 10% in 2023. One important contributing factor is the fact that, despite living in social housing, AHB tenants have less security of tenure and protection from eviction compared to those renting from a local authority.
Actions
As Ireland’s only housing and tenants’ union, CATU’s members are particularly affected by the issues documented in this report. We are also in a unique position to identify the changes needed to address the eviction crisis. Based on the union’s years of organising against evictions, as well as the research in the report, we have set out a set of demands focusing on what is required to prevent evictions and the resultant extreme hardship and suffering.
These include enforcing existing regulations and stopping illegal evictions; re-introducing the no-fault eviction ban; stopping the growth of corporate landlords; ending the outsourcing of social housing from local authorities to AHBs; and, ultimately, shifting to a system based on universally accessible public housing.
The latter point reflects the belief that many of the problems tenants and working class people are facing with the housing system in Ireland will only be addressed through the provision of universal public housing, referring to public housing accessible to all, with rent proportionate to income. Correspondingly, CATU calls for a system of universally accessible, culturally appropriate and high quality public housing to provide a real alternative to the uncertainty and exploitation which tenants must face in the private market.
Events & news
The Housing Commission appeared before the Oireachtas housing committee last Tuesday. It was rather overshadowed by the RPZ announcement, but you can watch it here. The final webinar in our Making Rental Housing Affordable series will take place on June 25th, looking at the very topical issue of the Germany reference system. The speaker is Stefan Kofner, the country’s leading expert on this issue. Register here.
What I’m reading
I had a piece in the Irish Examiner yesterday on the security of tenure measures brought in under the PRS reforms. A reminder that I was on Rory Hearne’s Reboot Republic podcast talking about these issues earlier in the week.