A Dublin tenant who claimed she was not obliged to pay rent because she was of an “elite status” has been ordered to pay more than €4,000 in rent arrears.
A Residential Tenancies Board tribunal heard Maree Egan had not paid her monthly rent of €633 for nine months from July 2023 until she vacated the house on Feltrim Road in Swords in April 2024.
Ms Egan had been paying the rent for the first two years of the tenancy, which began in July 2021, telling the tribunal that she stopped when she “did not have the money”.
However, the tenant claimed that she was a person of “elite status” and argued that she was not legally obliged to pay rent due to this status.
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When asked by the tribunal what was meant by “elite status,” Ms Egan, who said she was born in England and is an Irish citizen, claimed it was “in her bloodline, that she was born with it,” according to a tribunal report published on Tuesday.
Ms Egan claimed her status was recognised on her passport and that gardaí would be able to verify it.
She claimed that her landlord, James Ryan, was legally obliged to provide her free rent due “as a person of elite status”, further claiming that a “senior politician” was aware of her status and had spoken to her landlord about the matter.
Representing the landlord, Anita Ryan told the tribunal they were not aware that Ms Egan had any elite status and denied that any conversation with a senior politician took place.
Ms Ryan told the tribunal that Ms Egan had not paid rent for nine months and had accrued arrears of €5,697.
She told the tribunal an agreement had initially been made in which she would pay off the arrears in instalments of €70 before Ms Egan applied for Housing Assistance Payments (Hap).
Ms Ryan said the tenant was assisted in her Hap application; however, she claimed they then discovered she had received rent assistance which was not passed on to the landlord.
The tribunal accepted Ms Ryan’s uncontested evidence in the dispute and found Ms Egan to be in breach of her tenant obligations.
It ordered her to pay €4,307, being the arrears less her deposit and a payment of €770 made towards the arrears, in four monthly instalments of €1,000 followed by a final payment of €307.
“All citizens of Ireland are held equal before the law and as there is no specific exemption from the obligations of the 2004 Act (on the grounds of public policy or otherwise) for persons with a certain bloodline or elite status, the tribunal is satisfied that the Act applies to the parties to this dispute,” it said.
