Two landlords have been ordered to pay damages for their “flagrant disregard for the law” after monitoring their tenants through CCTV cameras following a “serious incident” at the property during which a resident doused himself in petrol.
A Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal heard CCTV cameras at the property in Co Cork sent notifications to the man and woman’s phones when the tenants entered and exited.
The female landlord told the tribunal they visited the male tenant on June 7th last year as they were “concerned about him”. She claimed the tenant had admitted to threatening to “shoot his wife and his children” and had been served a protection order, according to a tribunal report published last week.
The woman received a phone call from a neighbour the next day alerting her to a serious incident at the property. She arrived and saw the tenant being detained by gardaí. Members of the Garda’s Armed Response Unit, paramedics and two fire brigade units attended the scene, she said.
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She told the tribunal the male tenant had “doused himself in petrol”, with some fuel also poured inside the property, and claimed he was holding a lighter in his hand. She said the man later “apologised for threatening to burn the dwelling”.
The tenant’s wife said her husband suffered a deterioration in his health, was using drugs and made an attempt on his own life “but he did not intend to harm the house”. She said CCTV cameras installed at the front and back of the property alerted the landlords whenever she entered the house after the incident.
After being discharged from hospital on June 19th, the male tenant, who had been staying with his parents, met his wife at the property one evening before she received a text from the female landlord asking her “to get him to leave”.
The landlord claimed the cameras had been in place since the tenancy began in 2020, but they had not been connected to their phones. She said their insurer had informed her they would not be insured if the male tenant returned.
A notice of termination was issued at the end of June, giving eight days’ notice to leave the property, and this was found to be valid by the RTB tribunal.
By his actions, the tenant threatened the fabric of the dwelling to a serious degree, the tribunal said.
However, it said the landlords “are not permitted to act in such flagrant disregard for the law” despite their concerns for the safety and security of the property.
It said the tenants were entitled to have their rights upheld while the tenancy was ongoing, adding that the landlords breached their obligations in several ways including by monitoring their activities through CCTV.
The tribunal said the landlords also breached their obligations by attempting to “ban” the man from the property while his tenancy was ongoing. This is alongside the female landlord photographing a private statement written by the man’s wife for a protection order application and sharing the photo with the other landlord, her husband, and the RTB.
It also noted the locks were changed by the landlords who supplied keys to the tenants “only subject to provisos affecting how they could come and go”.
The tribunal ordered the landlords to pay €1,500 in damages to the tenants within 28 days “in compensation for the distress and inconvenience these breaches of obligations caused”.
“The landlords’ stress concerning their property, or insurance concerns, do not provide a basis to take the law into their own hands,” it said.
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