The High Court has refused Leonardo De Oliveira Lima’s appeal against a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) Tribunal decision concerning repairs and maintenance at the apartment complex where he lived in Swords, County Dublin.
In a judgment delivered on 23 January 2025, Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell held that the Tribunal did not err in law when it found that the landlord was not responsible under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 for maintaining common areas that were not in the landlord’s ownership or control.
Mr De Oliveira Lima had rented an apartment at Thornleigh Row, Applewood Village, since 2016. He complained to the RTB about the condition and maintenance of the dwelling and a rent review. The rent review notice was later withdrawn. An adjudicator initially found a breach of the landlord’s obligations and directed payment of €1,000 to the tenant. Both sides appealed to a Tenancy Tribunal, which did not uphold his claim.
The Tribunal found that repairs required inside the apartment had been completed within a reasonable time. It treated issues involving gates, building entrances, parking access, CCTV and other common areas as matters for an owners’ management company. The evidence before it proceeded on the basis that the common areas were not held by the landlord.
The High Court appeal was confined to points of law. The judge said the tenant could not introduce new arguments about whether an owners’ management company existed, its status, or whether it held the common areas, because those matters had not been disputed before the Tribunal or properly raised in the appeal within the applicable time.
The court considered whether the landlord’s repair duty under section 12(1)(b) of the 2004 Act extended to the common areas. It concluded that the statutory definition of a “dwelling” referred to property let by the landlord, and that the landlord’s duty to repair did not extend to common areas outside its ownership or control on the evidence in this case. The judge also found that the Tribunal’s reasons were sufficient to explain its decision.
The appeal was refused. The judge expressed a provisional view that the RTB should receive its costs, while allowing the parties to make submissions on a different costs order at a further hearing listed for 6 February 2025. The judgment does not state the final costs order.