Message to our Customers: RTB Updates, Helpful Information and Tips

The RTB continues to experience high volumes of calls, webchat, and emails. The RTB recognises that this is particularly testing and frustrating for landlords and agents and we sincerely apologise for the long waiting times to get through to our call centre and web-chat agents as well as for the delays in receiving an email response. We would like to reassure our customers that action is underway to improve the situation. The RTB would like to remind customers that any late fees incurred on tenancies with a Tenancy Commencement Date (TCD) on or after 4 April will be refunded in due course. We thank you for your continued patience as we work through this period of transition.

This aim of this statement is to provide a regular update to our customers on latest RTB developments, including annual registration and RTB customer service channels.

Refund of Late fees

Given the genuine difficulties among its user community, the RTB will be refunding all late fees paid to the RTB for new tenancy registrations with a tenancy commencement date on or after the 4 April 2022, and annual registrations of existing tenancies which became due on or after 4 April 2022. The RTB is hard at work to operationalise this new process over the coming weeks and will provide our customers with an update once the detail is finalised via these weekly website customer service announcements.

Please note that this will not apply to any late fees which have accumulated prior to the introduction of annual registration on 4 April 2022. This also does not apply to providers of Student Specific Accommodation (SSA).

Contacting the RTB

The RTB would like to reassure customers that if you have sent an email to the RTB, it will be responded to. We would ask customers to bear with us and where possible avoid sending follow up emails, as we are working hard to clear our backlog.  There are designated inboxes to help streamline Registration queries.

It is important that only one email address is contacted as this will allow us to move through queries in a more timely manner. We are currently assessing the wait times for answering these queries and will update our automated responses with this information in the coming days. We thank you for your cooperation on this.

Streamlined Customer Service

At present, the pressure on our call centre has led to a delay in processing queries and paper applications. The RTB appreciate that this is not an acceptable level of service and is committed to reducing the current waiting times. To address this, the RTB has conducted a review of all our communication channels to see where it is possible to optimise our service to customers. At the heart of this review has been listening to our customer feedback to understand their needs.

This review has highlighted that our customers queries are complex and require a more timely and personal interaction to resolve the issues. With this in mind, the RTB has made the decision to temporarily suspend our webchat service. Webchat, while an efficient channel when dealing with straightforward queries, is not equipped to deal with the volume or complexity of the current queries received.  By temporarily pausing the service it will increase the number of staff answering phones and emails and provide a more effective and efficient service for our customers.

Webchat will be removed from the website on Thursday, 25 August. This is a temporary measure during which the RTB will monitor the situation as part of our commitment to enhancing our customer service. 

Legislative Changes to Ending a Tenancy

New legislation was introduced that changes some of the procedures around how a landlord can end a tenancy. Some of these changes include:

For a full overview of what these changes are and what they mean for landlords and agents and tenants, please click here.

Useful Information to Help Register your Tenancy

The RTB has created several useful resources to support customers to create their online registration accounts, link existing tenancies to their online accounts, update their tenancies and more. To access this information, please click our Information Data Hub here.

For more information on annual registration, please click here.

Please note that landlords and agents only need to carry out an annual registration within one month of the anniversary of their tenancy commencement date. For example, if the tenancy commenced on 4 November 2021, landlords and agents only need to carry out the annual registration on 4 November 2022. The RTB cannot process annual registrations earlier than one month before the tenancy commencement date. The RTB will write to you when it is time to register your tenancy.

Below is an overview of some further helpful information and tips to support you in registering your tenancy.

Account Verification – PPS number

If it is the first time that you have engaged with the RTB’s new online system, there are some steps that you will need to take to verify your account. To assist in this one-off account creation process, you may find the following information useful here.

Remember, to verify a landlord’s account, we require the PPS number, the Date of Birth, and the name as held by the Department of Social Protection (DSP), as the verification comes through their system. Please make sure that you are spelling the name the same as on the DSP records. Do not put in abbreviations e.g. PJ if the name is Patrick Joseph.

When you are putting in tenants’ details into registration forms or online, it is NOT required to present PPS number and/or Date of Birth. You can proceed to register without this information.  Nonetheless, we would always strongly advise that you gather the PPS number of your tenant.

Linking Existing Tenancies to your New Account

If you have an active tenancy registration which is not showing on the 'Manage Registrations' page of your RTB online account, you can link it by selecting 'Link to an Existing Registration' from your account homepage and using the guidance provided here.

It is important to note that the information shown on the tenancy registration linking result will be the most up to date information you have provided to the RTB for the stated registration. In some cases, you may be asked to Accept or Reject this tenancy Some of our customers are Rejecting the link because the details shown do not appear up to date.

Please ensure that you ACCEPT the link to the registration, and you can then make up-dates to your registration, at no charge, such as up-dating the rent.

Lastly, the RTB has created a ‘Data Linking’ Excel file for those landlords or agents who have several tenancies that need to be linked at the one time. You can access the excel file here. Please fill in as much information about the tenancies that need to be linked to your account as possible. Once filled in, send the excel file to datalinking@rtb.ie and an RTB staff member will be in touch.

Annual Registration Information

If you have received correspondence from the RTB requesting that you make an annual registration, please follow through the instructions in this letter. Before making an annual registration online, you will need to see your tenancy registration on your ‘Managed Registration’ page of your online account. You can do this by going through the ‘Linking Existing Tenancies option’, as described above.

Ending a Tenancy

You may still have a tenancy registration with the RTB but are no longer renting that property. Therefore, you need to end that tenancy registration with the RTB. For landlords and agents who are no longer letting any properties, you do not need to set up an online account or link that tenancy. You can complete a Tenancy Up-date Form and email or post it in to the RTB.  

If you do have an online account, please choose the option to close a tenancy registration on the ‘Managed Registration’ page of your account. That will mean that the RTB will stop contacting you about this tenancy.

Transition Period

If you are making a new registration or an annual registration, a transition period is currently in place, meaning that any new registration or annual registration, has a window for payment up to and including 3 August 2022.

We are receiving high volumes of paper registrations, and tenancy up-date forms into our digital mail room. It is taking a couple of weeks to process these documents, but once we have received them, they are date-stamped and will be processed.  We have a new RTB1 paper form since April, which you can download here. Please do not post in the old RTB1 or RTB2 forms, as these are no longer acceptable.

The Customer Services Team