People renting out rooms in shared homes may not have tenant rights, say rental experts

People who rent rooms in shared rented homes from another tenant rather than a landlord may not have the same protections as tenants directly renting from landlords, rental sector experts say.
In a recent ruling, a tribunal of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), which adjudicates disputes between landlords and tenants, found a woman who was a tenant in a shared apartment in Dublin 8 had no contractual relationship with the corporate landlord.
The woman made contact with the head tenant through social media network Facebook in September 2023, leading to her living in the apartment. The head tenant was the contact point for the landlord and collected and paid the €2,023 per month rent the landlord charged for the two-bed apartment.
The woman, who was paying rent of €650 a month to the head tenant, complained that she had been “thrown out” by him in January 2024 and brought a case against the landlord alleging unlawful eviction.
However, the landlord told the tribunal that it had not known the head tenant was letting rooms in the apartment. The tribunal decided there was no tenancy agreement between the woman and the landlord and, therefore, the case did not fall within its jurisdiction.
In another recent ruling, a different RTB tribunal partly found in favour of two tenants whose dealings in relation to their accommodation were with a head tenant rather than the landlord.
The two Brazilian women, who brought their case against the landlord, rented accommodation in a four-bed apartment in Dublin 8 and paid their rent to the lead tenant.
They were awarded damages of €500 each because the landlord had not ensured that they had the landlord’s contact details. This, the tribunal found, was a breach of the Residential Tenancies Act.
They were also awarded damages for rent increases that the tribunal deemed unlawful, but not for money scammed from them by the head tenant, who overstated the size of the unlawful rent increases.
Ann-Marie O’Reilly, advocacy officer with the housing charity Threshold, said that people who rent rooms or beds in shared accommodation and deal with another tenant in the property rather than the landlord may be classified as licensees rather than tenants of the property.
This will often mean they do not have access to the protections overseen by the RTB. However, important nuances can determine whether people have rights or not.
“A lot of people do find themselves in those sort of letting arrangements. It can be very informal. People [already] living there say: ‘Grand, move in, and you don’t put your name to anything.’”
In such situations, the head tenant does not have the same duties and responsibilities as a landlord under the Act, she said.
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People who are in a licensee arrangement can, after a period of six months, seek to have the landlord recognise them as a tenant, she said.
Students living in purpose-built student accommodation are licensees but are covered by the Act, she said, while people whose accommodation is supplied by an employer are not and can be vulnerable to being evicted if they lose or leave their job.
In cases where a person rents a property from the owner and this person, who does not live in the property, then lets it out to others, the person doing so becomes a “sub-landlord” for the tenancy and takes on the responsibilities and duties of a landlord under the Act, she said.
Under the Residential Tenancies Act, a dwelling that qualifies as a tenancy must be a “self-contained unit”, said barrister Martin Canny.
“So a sublet unit needs to have its own kitchen and bathroom. If not, it is not a unit that can be registered as a tenancy” under the Act, he said.
Arrangements for sharing multi-bed apartments or houses can involve a new occupant’s name being entered on a master lease in the place of someone who has left, so that all the occupants are tenants of the landlord, but that is not how people usually arrange their affairs, he said.
“In some ways it is messy for the landlord to have four tenants,” he said. But tenants who don’t involve the landlord “are just a licensee of the chap who has given them that room”.
As such, they most likely do not have access to the tenancy and other rights overseen by the RTB.