Tallaght, Dublin 24. RTB Determination Order, 16 August 2023. The case that demonstrates the most underused leverage tool in Irish landlord-tenant practice — the per-day damages clock.
This case was not handled by shelter.ie. Facts below are sourced from Irish Times reporting of the underlying RTB Determination Order. Names of the parties are not in the press coverage; the determination order itself, available on the RTB public-record system, contains the full names. The "What shelter.ie's playbook would have been" section is our analysis.
A landlord in Tallaght, Dublin 24, served a Notice of Termination on a tenant in arrears in January 2023. The tenant did not vacate. The case proceeded to RTB adjudication on 2 June 2023.
On 16 August 2023, the Residential Tenancies Board issued a Determination Order requiring the tenant to vacate the property within 28 days, pay rent arrears of approximately €21,000, AND pay an additional €47.34 for each day they continued to occupy the property after 2 June 2023. The per-diem element of the determination is the unusual feature — and the most instructive one — of the case.
At €47.34 per day, the per-diem accrual added approximately €331 per week to the arrears figure. By the time the determination was published (16 August), the tenant owed an additional ~€3,500 on top of the original €21,000. By the time vacant possession was finally achieved (date not in press coverage but typically several weeks to several months after determination), the per diem alone would have added thousands more.
Source: Irish Times, "Dublin tenant ordered to pay €21,000 to landlord as RTB finds against overholding renters", 5 September 2023.
The RTB has the statutory power, under section 115 and related provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, to make orders requiring tenants who have overheld a Notice of Termination to pay damages reflecting the use and occupation of the property during the overholding period. These can take the form of a per-diem rate.
The per diem is calculated by reference to the daily rental value of the property — in this case approximately €47.34/day, which suggests a monthly rent in the order of €1,440.
The per-diem mechanism is well-established but underused. Most landlords running RTB cases without representation focus on the historic arrears figure and miss the request for ongoing per-diem damages from a specified cut-off date. The result is that the historic arrears stop growing on the case's books once the determination process starts, even though the tenant continues to occupy and the landlord continues to lose use of the property.
The case demonstrates what happens when the per-diem mechanism is properly invoked.
What the per-diem mechanism delivered for this landlord:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Base arrears at adjudication | €21,000 |
| Per-diem rate | €47.34/day |
| Per-week accrual | €331 |
| Per-month accrual | ~€1,420 |
| 6 months of post-determination overholding (illustrative) | +€8,520 |
| 12 months of post-determination overholding (illustrative) | +€17,283 |
| Total potential award if 12-month overholding | ~€38,000+ |
Without the per diem, the determination would have capped at the historic €21,000 figure (with the statutory two-year arrears window applying). With the per diem, the figure continues to grow as long as the tenant occupies — creating commercial pressure to leave that the static arrears figure alone wouldn't.
The Tallaght case is what running an RTB Acceleration Pack should look like. Properly drafted notice, properly run adjudication, and — crucially — explicit per-diem request in the application.
Step 1 — Application drafted with per-diem request from day one. Our standard RTB application template includes a per-diem damages request as a default line item, calculated from the date of the application. This is the single most often-missed element in DIY RTB applications.
Step 2 — Weekly written notice to the tenant during overholding. Once the adjudication date is set, we send the tenant weekly written reminders of the running per-diem figure. Most tenants don't track it. The first reminder showing arrears jumping €331 in a week reframes the negotiation entirely. Some tenants who would have overheld for six months voluntarily exit at week three when the running tally becomes visible.
Step 3 — Per-diem-inclusive figure baked into any negotiated settlement. If the tenant offers to settle (cash partial repayment in exchange for ending the case), the per-diem-inclusive figure is the starting point, not the historic arrears alone. This typically gets the landlord 15–30% more in negotiated settlement than they would have achieved without the per-diem leverage.
Step 4 — Per-diem-inclusive figure baked into the eventual judgment mortgage application. If post-RTB enforcement requires a judgment mortgage on tenant property (rare but valuable when applicable), the figure registered against the property is the full per-diem-inclusive total, not the historic figure alone.
Step 5 — Honest framing about per-diem realism. A per diem on a tenant who can't pay the historic arrears is not actually recoverable cash on day one. It's a leverage tool — pressure for the tenant to leave faster — and an enforcement-stage tool — a larger judgment mortgage figure if recovery becomes possible later. We're honest with clients about both functions.
The Tallaght case is the answer to "what's the difference between hiring a productised RTB service vs running it yourself?" The procedural elements of the case are routine — Notice, adjudication, determination. The per-diem mechanism is what separates a case that delivers €21,000 in 8 months from a case that delivers €30,000+ in 14 months.
This is the kind of detail productisation gets right. A solicitor billing hourly might or might not include the per-diem request depending on the case-specific instructions. A DIY landlord almost certainly won't. A productised service runs the full template every time, because the template costs the same to run with the per-diem request as without it.
Small details. Multiplied across a portfolio of cases, they're the difference between a service that works and one that's just paperwork.
If you've been told by another service or solicitor that "the RTB process is what it is" and you can't do anything to put pressure on the tenant during overholding — that's not quite true. The per-diem mechanism is one of three pressure tools we use as standard (the others: weekly written notices of running balance, and pre-emptive judgment-mortgage-application-readiness). None of them are secret. All of them are available to any landlord with proper representation. Most landlords don't know to ask for them.
That's what we do.
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