RPZ Compliance Query

[Leo]

doubt €150 per month equates to 2% - my point is that the breach may not be as high as it initially looks if you did not increase for a number of years (which seems to be the case with that poster for the first increase anyway).

They OP said they raised the rent in Jan 2023, and again in March 2024. What the rent was years ago is of no consequence now, just the amount raised since the previous rent. Perhaps they might have been eligible to raise by more in 2023, but that ship has long sailed.

I think that this is a mail merge - every landlord with a tenancy showing an increase above 2% is being emailed.

Why would they choose to run an export of all where increase >2% when another couple of minutes enhancing the query would identify those who are more likely in breach? I've yet to hear of someone who is clearly in compliance get such a letter.

Also to note, no organisation of that scale is doing mail merges any more....technology has moved on.

 

[Premos]

On their website, they seem to say it has been sent to anyone who raised rent above 2 per cent.

 

[Greenbook]

They OP said they raised the rent in Jan 2023, and again in March 2024. What the rent was years ago is of no consequence now, just the amount raised since the previous rent. Perhaps they might have been eligible to raise by more in 2023, but that ship has long sailed.



Why would they choose to run an export of all where increase >2% when another couple of minutes enhancing the query would identify those who are more likely in breach? I've yet to hear of someone who is clearly in compliance get such a letter.

Also to note, no organisation of that scale is doing mail merges any more....technology has moved on.

See post by Nobody from yesterday

I got one of those letters and I used the RTB calculator to set the increase in rent.
I sent the RTB an email saying I increased the rent by the amount allowed by the calculator.

What ever this is, mail merge or not, my suspicion is that every landlord with an increase above 2% is getting one of these emails. It is far easier to do that rather than individually and by hand check each one which appears to be in breach. I doubt that the RTB system is sophisticated enough yet that it has the software to do this.

My real point is that if get an email and you think you are not in breach - check as that may well be the case.

Even if as seems to be the case with the original poster here, you were unaware of RPZs and just increased as you felt justified, the breach may not be as bad as it appears due to the fact that back years can be included or you may not be in breach at all.

 

[Leo]

What ever this is, mail merge or not, my suspicion is that every landlord with an increase above 2% is getting one of these emails. It is far easier to do that rather than individually and by hand check each one which appears to be in breach. I doubt that the RTB system is sophisticated enough yet that it has the software to do this.

No one is hand checking! That makes zero sense when a few minutes in SQL would pull a full and accurate report based on the data they have on record. That isn't sophisticated technology by any means.

 

[Greenbook]

No one is hand checking! That makes zero sense when a few minutes in SQL would pull a full and accurate report based on the data they have on record. That isn't sophisticated technology by any means.

I never said anybody was handchecking!

I said that I think that the RTB's software is not sophisticated enough yet to calculate this ie. whether a 6% increase is a breach or a catch up on back years.

Handchecking makes no sense - so the RTB just emailed everyone above 2% and let them justify the increase

I think that's what's happened but obviously I do not know this for sure.

I am simply trying to be helpful. If you don't think you have breached the cap, don't just accept the email. Recheck your calculations. Even if you just put through an increase, again check. The breach may not be as bad as first appears due to the ability to include back years.

 

[Leo]

I never said anybody was handchecking!

Not even when you said:

It is far easier to do that rather than individually and by hand check each one

I think that's what's happened but obviously I do not know this for sure.

Yep, I understand that. I just think that's unlikely even for an organisation with the RTB's history. I would have expected press coverage had there been so many landlords getting these letters in error, the IPOA and others remain silent.

 

[Greenbook]

Not even when you said:

I never said the RTB were handchecking!!!!!

I said that it is easier to send out a blanket email to all landlords above 2% rather than hand check the calculation for 60,000 individual tenancies.

I said they did not hand check and sent out a blanket email instead!

 

[Leo]

I never said the RTB were handchecking!!!!!

Yep, I hear you. And I very much doubt they just send a blanket email to all who raised by >2% when they could modify the query to include the actual calculation. I mean they are already producing reporting on compliance, why then revert to an inadequate query?

 

[Premos]

The RTB is writing to landlords where it has noted that the registered rent for a tenancy registration has increased by more than 2% above the last rent registered for a tenancy at the same dwelling.
That is from the rtb website. They probably could do better but it seems to be a blanket communication. (Though they might mean by more than 2 per yearly)

 

[Greenbook]

The RTB is writing to landlords where it has noted that the registered rent for a tenancy registration has increased by more than 2% above the last rent registered for a tenancy at the same dwelling.
That is from the rtb website. They probably could do better but it seems to be a blanket communication.

Thanks Premos! I saw that as well which lead me to believe that any tenancy which increased by more than 2% is being emailed and no check is done (by whatever method) to see whether or not the increase above 2% is justified

That said, Leo may well be correct - they may be using a more sophisticated system and targeting only those who they know are in breach.

My opinion is that it is the former (this is the RTB) and so you should check the calculation if you get an email.

 

[DannyBoyD]

So are we all agreed that post #2 is what you need to do if you get this letter from RTB?

 

[Greenbook]

Yep, I hear you. And I very much doubt they just send a blanket email to all who raised by >2% when they could modify the query to include the actual calculation. I mean they are already producing reporting on compliance, why then revert to an inadequate query?

You may be 100% correct here. You obviously know about these systems.

That said, I still think if you get an email, it is worth checking the RPZ calculation and not accepting it at face value. My suspicion, which differs from your view, is that this is a blanket email. No harm in checking.

 

[Leo]

That said, I still think if you get an email, it is worth checking the RPZ calculation and not accepting it at face value.

I agree 100%. I'd suspect what's a more likely issue here is that the RTB will have misplaced previous rent reviews, notifications of significant alterations, or the like and so their calculations of compliance might be missing data in some cases.

The calculations of whether rent reviews within the last year are compliant based on time since the last rent review is a simple query for them to run, I don't see how they'd just select all where this years' was over 2% given how easy it would be filter it down and how much extra work the >2% option would result in from compliant landlords contacting them.

You might be right and they took the foolish option, if we get landlords posting here who are 100% compliant we might find out.

 

[Greenbook]

I agree 100%. I'd suspect what's a more likely issue here is that the RTB will have misplaced previous rent reviews, notifications of significant alterations, or the like and so their calculations of compliance might be missing data in some cases.

The calculations of whether rent reviews within the last year are compliant based on time since the last rent review is a simple query for them to run, I don't see how they'd just select all where this years' was over 2% given how easy it would be filter it down and how much extra work the >2% option would result in from compliant landlords contacting them.

You might be right and they took the foolish option, if we get landlords posting here who are 100% compliant we might find out.

Or they don't realise that you can increase the rent by, say, 6% if this is first increase in three years! Highly unlikely, but you never know with the RTB

 

[lff12]

I suspect that they are writing to everyone who increased by more than 2% ie if you didn't increase the rent at all for 3 years and then increased it by 6% (entirely legal) you get a letter. Any increase above 2% gets an email. This isn't targeted, it is blanket emails.

In other words, they are now enforcing the law rather than leaving it to chance?
Perhaps a benefit of changing registrations to annual, well for the tenant, not for non compliant landlords. Of course if you were compliant and used their calculator, all you need to do is write back and advise the dates the rent were set and that they were done using the calculator.

 

[lff12]

They OP said they raised the rent in Jan 2023, and again in March 2024. What the rent was years ago is of no consequence now, just the amount raised since the previous rent. Perhaps they might have been eligible to raise by more in 2023, but that ship has long sailed.



Why would they choose to run an export of all where increase >2% when another couple of minutes enhancing the query would identify those who are more likely in breach? I've yet to hear of someone who is clearly in compliance get such a letter.

Also to note, no organisation of that scale is doing mail merges any more....technology has moved on.

The calculator allows for this scenario, you can increase by more than 2% if you left it longer than the minimum term before increasing, but as long as you used their calculator to set the allowable maximum increase, you would be fine.
The problem is where a LL didn't understand or know they were in an RPZ (which would be surprising), or just ignored it, assuming there would be no consequences, there is a problem.

The old school way to do this was to not register at all, which is why there's a large gap between the number of reported rentals and actual registrations. But even most of those landlords would follow the RPZ and other rules fairly closely so there isn't a reason for a tenant to alert RTB to their existence. Then when the tenant leaves they hike the rent up to whatever the local market will bear.

 

[Leo]

The calculator allows for this scenario, you can increase by more than 2% if you left it longer than the minimum term before increasing, but as long as you used their calculator to set the allowable maximum increase, you would be fine.

Yeah, my point was the second €150 increase after 14 months was the problematic one. They might have achieved a €300 increase overall had they ensured the first review increased by the maximum allowed at that time, but failing to do so doesn't allow you come back later to fix that error.