A landlord has been ordered to pay the maximum €15,000 compensation after refusing to accept payments under the State housing assistance scheme on behalf of a tenant he later evicted into homelessness.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has ordered the landlord, Sherman Chan, to pay his tenant Olga Burla the sum after ruling he had breached the Equal Status Act 2000 by discriminating against her on the grounds of housing assistance.
At a hearing in Dublin last month, Ms Burla said that she had been renting from Mr Chan for around two years when her family circumstances changed in January 2024 and she became a single parent.
She said she faced “significant financial challenges”, as she was the sole breadwinner with a number of teenage children, trying to cover a rental payment of €1,650 a month.
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Ms Burla said she asked Mr Chan in April that year about applying for the State housing assistance payment (HAP). Mr Chan told her he “did not want to accept HAP”, she told the WRC.
Ms Burla’s evidence was that she asked four more times up to January 2025, but Mr Chan did not change his stance.
Representatives of tenant advocacy organisation Threshold, who appeared on behalf of Ms Burla at a hearing on August 19th, told the WRC their client had left the property 11 days earlier on foot of an eviction notice and was living in emergency accommodation.
In his evidence to the WRC, Mr Chan referred to a series of complaints from the property management company about “excessive noise” from the property which was becoming “unbearable” for neighbours.
A complaint in January that year had described “screaming, shouting and cursing going on at all hours”, “items being thrown at walls”, and “doors being slammed excessively”.
This “antisocial behaviour” had continued throughout the year, with Ms Burla having apologised for the actions of her teenage children, the tribunal heard.
He said he was not familiar with the HAP system and did not agree to accept it because he believed the local authority would “take over the property” and sublet it to the tenant.
He said that having received legal advice, he now knew this to be incorrect, but that at the time, he thought this would “undervalue” the property, which he planned to sell.
Asked by Threshold representative Randall Burkhardt if he knew he was obliged to accept HAP, Mr Chan said that when Ms Burla was asking, he had “no idea what HAP was”.
Mr Chan’s solicitor, Denise Biggins of Michael Ward & Co LLP, told the WRC it was clear her client was “confused about what HAP involved”.
She submitted that Mr Chan “did not intentionally discriminate against the complainant”.
He had also “extended his compassion” for Ms Burla’s position by making no reference to antisocial behaviour in the eviction notices he issued her as this would have given her a shorter notice period to vacate, Ms Biggins submitted.
In his decision, adjudication officer John Harraghy noted Mr Chan’s belief that his property would be “taken over by the local authority” under the HAP scheme.
He wrote that the legal principle of “ignorance of the law is no excuse” applied to the case, and upheld Ms Burla’s complaint of direct discrimination on the ground of housing assistance as “well-founded”.
He awarded Ms Burla €15,000 in compensation, the legal maximum under the Equal Status Act 2000.
Mr Harraghy wrote that in setting the value of the award, he was taking into account the financial loss suffered by Ms Burla – which Threshold had calculated at €22,109 – as well as the stress caused to her by the discrimination.
