Rent Pressure Zones now cover all of Ireland: what that means before you switch to short lets

The cap, in one sentence

In a Rent Pressure Zone a landlord may increase rent once a year, by either the rate of inflation as recorded by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices or by 2 per cent, whichever is lower — the lower limb inserted into section 19(4) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 with effect from 11 December 2021. Read that twice: it is the lower of the two, and it is once a year, not once a tenancy. Over a decade, a cap of that shape compounds to far less than most owners assume when they compare a tenancy with a season of short lets, and that arithmetic is the honest starting point for the comparison — not a nightly rate.

Why this lands on the short-let decision

Two consequences follow for anyone thinking about moving a property between uses.

• A tenancy is a long commitment on price. The rent you set at the start of a tenancy is the base your future increases are measured from, and those increases are capped. That argues for care and advice at the moment of setting, not for optimism about catching up later.

The four questions we ask, in this order

• If it stays a tenancy, when did the tenancy start, when was the last review, and when did this area become an RPZ? Those three dates determine what you can do this year.

Housekeeping that protects you either way

If you are holding an Irish property and weighing the two routes, send us the address, how the property is held and the tenancy dates. We study every request and tell you honestly whether and how we can help — including when the answer is that the tenancy is the better asset.