RTB tribunal finds Tramco renters are licencees not tenants, overturning a previous decision

In March, an adjudicator at the Residential Tenancies Board found that some of the renters in the Tramco building in Rathmines – one of whom had lived there for 14 years – were tenants, not holiday makers. 

That made their notices to vacate the building invalid, show rulings for two of the apartments. 

For one other apartment at least though, the property owner, Wellington Hospitality Ltd, appealed the decision that the renters were tenants, show records on the RTB’s database.

The company argued that the building is an aparthotel and that the renters were guests who didn’t have exclusive occupation of the flats. 

Following a hearing in April, the RTB found that it didn’t have jurisdiction in the case; the tribunal members sided with the landlord and found the renters were licensees and not tenants.

It’s unclear how many other cases for the Tramco building have also gone to tribunal, and had similar rulings. There’s just one listed for now on the RTB’s dispute’s database.

Gavin Elliott, a barrister with expertise in housing, says the case is unusual and that in his experience, the RTB tends to find that renters who are not living with the property owner are tenants, regardless of what their contract says. 

How the RTB rules can be unpredictable though, especially when it comes to shared houses. Tribunals have issued contradictory decisions in the past as to when renters sharing a property are tenants and when they are licensees, including in two rulings involving renters in the same building.

Elliott says the RTB took multiple assertions by the landlord into account to reach the decision that the renters at Tramco were licencees.

“The licence/tenancy thing, it's a close run thing,” says Elliott by phone on Wednesday. 

Like in this case where the adjudicator found in one direction and then the tribunal in another, he says. “It could have gone the other way.”

In general, tenants have much greater protection in law than licencees, who have very few rights. Rent for licencees can be set outside of rent pressure zone laws, and licencees can be asked to leave a property at short notice and without any reason.

The story of Tramco

In November 2024, Abdul Rahman Ali, who was living in the Tramco building at the time, said that he had thought of himself as a long-term tenant in his home in Rathmines.

He had lived here for more than 14 years, after all.

He rented the flat in the Tramco building, a big block beside Lidl on Rathmines Road Lower in January 2010, shows a lease he signed with the estate agents at the time, Lowe and Associates.

Later the apartment block changed hands and Rahman Ali moved flats, but he lived in the building continuously for 14 years and was shocked when he was given three months to leave, he said.  

As people moved out, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive contracted some of the apartments at Tramco for emergency accommodation.

Along with 15 of his neighbours, who lived in seven apartments in the building, Rahman Ali joined the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU).

The renters challenged the evictions through the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). Central to the case was whether the RTB decided that they were tenants, with the rights that that brings, or hotel guests, there on “licences”.

Earlier this year, the RTB adjudicator found that some of the renters in Tramco, including Rahman Ali were tenants and that their notice of termination was not valid. 

Also, the RTB said that the landlord should pay Rahman Ali €1,800 and the tenants in another apartment €3,500 within 28 days for overpaid rent because of a rent review that was not valid. 

Malcolm Stuart, the manager of Wellington Hospitality, has maintained that those living in the building have been licencees. “This building has never been anything but a hotel,” he said in March.

On appeal

At an RTB adjudication, an independent adjudicator reviews the evidence and makes a decision. 

Either party can appeal that though to a tribunal panel of three people who make a binding decision which can only be appealed to the High Court on specific points of law.  

A tribunal report posted on the RTB’s disputes database shows that Wellington Hospitality appealed at least one of the adjudication rulings for the Tramco building.  

The hearing took place in April. The three tenants who lived together in one apartment didn’t attend, the report says. 

Stuart, the manager of Wellington Hospitality, produced a copy of the original planning permission dated 30 January 1997, which described the building as an aparthotel.

He also argued that when Wellington Hospitality purchased the building in 2014, it paid stamp duty to purchase a “second-hand commercial/industrial premises”, which is a different rate of stamp duty from a residential development. 

The tribunal also took into account agreements signed by the parties in May 2020, which described the building as an aparthotel and the renters there as “guests”.

Counsel for the landlord, Alan Crann BL, argued that the renters had agreed to a set of house rules which didn’t allow for “exclusive occupation”. 

The rules banned smoking in apartments and music that could be heard outside of a room. Also, “the house rules further provided that the Tenants were not permitted to have guests in their apartments without registering them in advance”, the tribunal report says.

The tribunal accepted the landlord’s contention that the renters didn’t have exclusive occupation of the apartments at Tramco. 

“The Tribunal places significant weight on the fact that there was tight control of guests that could be allowed within the building,” says the report. “Furthermore, the Tribunal is satisfied that the Landlord exercised its right to inspect the individual apartments for fire-safety and cleaning purposes.”

“The Tribunal considers these features of the occupation of the dwelling to fall significantly short of providing the occupants with 'exclusive possession”, it says.

A spokesperson for the CATU which supported some of the Tramco renters, said that in its view, the state has facilitated a mass eviction at Tramco through a contract with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. The RTB has failed to uphold justice, it said. 

It’s complicated

Since the tenants weren’t at the RTB hearing, the tribunal only heard one side of the argument, says Elliott, the barrister. 

The landlord presented multiple factors to demonstrate that the arrangement was a licence agreement rather than a tenancy. Elliott says it’s likely that the tribunal was convinced by all those taken together. 

“There was a written agreement in place, now that is not definitive, but it is something that points to an intention to create a particular type of legal relationship,” he says. 

As well as that there is the landlord’s contention that there was a receptionist on and that there were strict rules around guests, as well as unannounced inspections, he says. “All of these things make it look like a long-stay hotel.”

He doesn’t think this case will have any bearing on any future disputes about licences versus tenancies, he says. “I wouldn’t have thought it would have much impact.”

“There are a lot of landlords out there who will say it's a licence rather than a tenancy,” he says. The RTB often won’t accept that, but it is complicated, says Elliott. 

“It's very subjective, does it look more like a licence than a tenancy?” he says.