Taxing Matters

Requirement to Register Tenancies with the Private Residential Tenancies Board

The Finance Act 2006 amended the computational rules for determining the amount of rental income chargeable to tax. Entitlement to a deduction for interest paid on borrowed money employed in the purchase, improvement or repair of a rented residential property is now conditional on compliance with the registration requirements of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 (the Act).

This change applies to interest paid by individuals during the year of assessment 2006 and subsequent years and by companies for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2006.

Who must register?

The Act applies to the vast majority of private rented dwellings situated in the State (dwellings outside the State are outside the scope of the Act). Section 3 of the Act lists the types of dwellings that are excluded and in respect of which there is no requirement to register tenancies. The main exclusions include:
–Business premises
–Former rent controlled dwellings occupied by the original tenant or by his/her spouse
–A dwelling let by a local authority or a voluntary housing body
–A dwelling occupied under a shared ownership lease
–A dwelling in which the landlord also resides (this would include the ‘rent a room’ scheme)
–A dwelling in which the spouse, parent or child of the landlord is resident and where there is no written lease or tenancy agreement
–Holiday lettings.

The onus is on a landlord to ascertain whether he or she is excluded from the requirement to register tenancies.

Registration requirements

Landlords are required to register details of all of their tenancies within one month of the commencement of those tenancies. Once a tenancy is registered it remains a registered tenancy for as long as the tenancy remains in existence. Once the tenancy is terminated, any new tenancy created in respect of the dwelling must be registered with the PRTB.

The registration application form PRTB1 is available from local authority Housing Sections or it can be downloaded from www.environ.ie
Further information about the Residential Tenancies Act and the registration requirements is available at www.prtb.ie

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