Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Stephen  Keogh

 Lynam Auctioneers and Estate Agents

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00053737-001

16/11/2022

The complainant had been accepted to rent a property from an estate agent who told him he had been successful.

Just before payment of the deposit and signing the contract, he advised the agent that he was in receipt of HAP.

She advised us that she would talk to the landlord and was not sure if they were tax compliant.

She then got back to us and said the landlord was not tax compliant.

We then advised them that the HAP would give them the six-month grace period to sort out any taxtheyneededtosortout.

After this we were ignored and heard nothing back after being accepted, and then we noticed the house was back up on a letting website to rent again.

The rent had also been increased. We sent ES1 and ES2 forms by registered post but was not delivered and shown as refused.

The tenants were offered the property on October 18th by email; this congratulatory email gave them twenty-four hours to have both rent and deposit sent to our bank account.

No reply was received to this email, so the respondent tried calling the tenant but to no avail. She let the landlord know that the email was sent and tried calling but had not received a response. We followed up by email again the following day. The complainant came back to her the following day to state they would be sending monies over to us the following day which was October 20th.

On October 20th the agent received the tenant questionnaire back but no monies for the property and asked again on the 21st if any monies were paid but received no response.

 She had kept the landlord updated on this and they were starting to get worried as they had not yet heard anything. They wanted their property rented out and could not understand as there was a housing crisis why it was taking so long for this to be completed.

The complainant was contactedagainonOctober 24thaskingforanupdateonmoniesandiftheyweregoingtobepaid.Their babysonwassickatthetimebutagainthe respondent wasactingforaclientwhowantedtoknowifwewere moving ontoanothertenant orwhatthecase was.

The complainant had come back to say their son was in hospital and if they could delay move in and paying rent/deposit. This was relayed this back to the landlord who was starting to get a bit anxious at this stage as we had not been kept updated and were constantly having to chase for an answer on progress here.

On October 26th a text arrived from the complainant’s wife as she had not heard anything back from the complainant after trying to get him on his mobile numerous times. She had stated they hadn't had a minute as the little lad was in the hospital and to also mention that she was out sick from work after maternity due to their child being sick.

The respondent was sympathetic to their situation and understood what it's like when you have a sick child, but she had to act for her client’s best interests here and needed to get everything completed and fast at this point.

This was the first time the complainant or his wife mentioned HAP e, there had been no mention of it beforehand or at viewing.

This fact caused the landlord concern as did the failure of the complainant to return calls.  

The property was offered on October 18th, yet it took them until the 26th to mention HAP. If it had been mentioned at the beginning, then we could have made it known that the landlord could not obtain a tax clearance cert and not wasted any more time than was necessary.

The respondent has no issues with HAP tenants and the property in question was eventually let to a HAP tenant.

The issue was not HAP, but the delay in confirming acceptance of the property and payment of the deposit.

The narrative as set out by the respondent, while differing in some important detail from that set out by the complainant on the complaint form, was not disputed by the complainant at the hearing.

This was not a situation where, on learning that a prospective tenant would be in receipt of HAP a landlord or letting agent had a change of heart.

In this case, according to the undisputed evidence of the respondent HAP was not mentioned until eight days after the property was offered to the complainant during which time the complainant had failed to communicate his acceptance of the offer or pay a deposit (for very understandable reasons as the family had a young, very sick child in hospital).

Nonetheless, it was this fact, rather than his HAP status that was decisive in the tenancy not going ahead and it is noteworthy that despite the landlord’s tax status being uncertain the property was let to a HAP tenant.

The complainant had been asked to confirm the offer of the tenancy and pay a deposit within twenty-four hours but did nothing for eight days. It is not really reasonable to expect a landlord to keep open an offer for over a week.

Accordingly, while this was a further burden for the complainant’s family to bear at a time when it had other serious worries, I find that the tenancy was not declined due to their HAP status and the complaint is not well founded.

For the reasons set out above complaint CA-00053537-001 is not well founded and it not upheld.

Key Words: Equal Status, HAP.