A letting agent who said the financial impact of delays to a housing assistance claim over missing documents was not his responsibility has been ordered to pay a tenant three months’ rent, €2,400, in compensation by a tribunal.
A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator called it “alarming” that the letting agent, Brendan Mannix, failed to consider the financial impact of his failure to get the documents required by tenant Una Broderick to progress with a Housing Assistance Payment application.
Ms Broderick, a tenant at a property in Castleisland, Co Kerry, told the WRC that having applied to Kerry County Council for access to the Housing Assistance Payment scheme, the local authority informed her that it required certain documentation from the landlord to process her claim.
Mr Mannix, the landlord’s agent, had been advised by the council on June 8th 2023 that an insurance policy could have been used as proof of ownership in support of the application, along with other options, Ms Broderick said.
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The documents needed were not provided, Ms Broderick said in evidence, explaining that without the payment to support her rent, she suffered “financial difficulties”.
Ms Broderick and her partner, Rhys Kelly, were represented by housing charity Threshold in the complaint.
Mr Kelly also gave evidence that when he spoke to Mr Mannix by phone in June 2023, the letting agent advised him not to proceed with a complaint and warned him about “being led down the garden path” by Threshold.
Mr Mannix said in evidence that he only became aware that the property wasn’t insured when Ms Broderick made the Hap application in May 2023.
The landlord’s position was that he could not get access to the documents required, Mr Mannix said. This was because the material was in a locked cabinet in the landlord’s office in Castleisland — and the landlord was away in Turkey at the time.
The letting agent said that although he put the landlord in contact with an insurer, the firm would not discuss the matter with the agent for data protection reasons.
“It was not for me to chase the policy,” Mr Mannix said in evidence.
Addressing the gathering of documents in support of a housing assistance payment, Mr Mannix further stated: “If the landlord does not buy into it, I cannot be running around like a headless chicken.”
When it was put to Mr Mannix in cross-examination that Ms Broderick and her partner were struggling financially without the Hap they had been approved for, the agent replied: “I don’t know they were struggling. That’s not my responsibility.”
Asked why he did not follow up on the matter when the landlord got back to Co Kerry, Mr Mannix said he had “many tenants” to deal with and “did not have time”.
In her decision, adjudicator Úna Glazier-Farmer wrote: “The Hap application requires supporting documents that the respondent ought reasonably to be aware of, given that he is a licensed letting agent.”
She noted that it was a requirement of the Residential Tenancies Act for a landlord to insure a property offered for let and said it would have been “entirely reasonable” that Mr Mannix would have verified that all requirements of the act were met and kept information on file.
Ms Glazier-Farmer accepted Mr Mannix “did go to some efforts to retrieve the documentation” but said it was “alarming” that the letting agent “did not consider the financial impact on the complainant when she could not access Hap”.
“Of most concern was his comment in evidence that it was ‘not my responsibility’,” she wrote, adding that there had been a “failure to have regard for the legal obligations placed on an agent when letting a property”.
She awarded Ms Broderick €2,400 in compensation for the breach of the Equal Status Act 2000, a sum equivalent to three months’ rent.
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