A mother of two young children has been ordered to vacate a property in Co Meath after failing to comply with her landlord’s order to remove XL bully dogs from her rented property.
Túath Housing Association argued it had a “duty of care” to other residents in removing the dogs, which were gifts for the tenant’s children, a Residential Tenancies Board tribunal heard.
The landlord issued a warning letter to tenant Malgorzata Bialek-Szymanska on December 21st, 2023, giving her two weeks to remove the dogs from the property after they were discovered.
Ms Bialek-Szymanska said the notice given by her landlord to remove the dogs “was not a reasonable time” to re-home them, adding that since October 1st of last year, it had become “illegal” to rehome the breed type.
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Regulations introduced in October prohibit the importing, breeding, selling and rehoming of XL bully type dogs, while from February 1st, it will be illegal to own this breed type without a certificate of exemption.
When it was put to the tenant she had from December 2023 until the date of the hearing in November 2024 to comply, she argued she had not breached the lease as she had prior consent to keep two labradors at the property in Navan.
After both labradors died, she recalled getting the first XL bully as a Christmas gift for one of her children in December 2021, while the second dog was a birthday present for her other child in August 2022.
Although accepting she had not sought consent to have the two new dogs at the property, she argued that her letting agreement did not oblige her to reapply for consent.
She said it was “too late for the landlord to do something now” as the dogs had been in the dwelling for over two years and had become part of her family with her children, aged seven and five.
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Ms Bialek-Szymanska claimed the dogs have no interaction with neighbours as they are locked within the property and “cannot escape”, and are kept in a cage when there are visitors.
The issue of the dogs being at the property first arose during an annual inspection in November 2023, Niall Duffy, a representative for landlord Túath Housing Association, told the tribunal.
He said the tenant was told the dogs were not permitted at the property, that they were on a list of prohibited dogs and would have to be removed for “health and safety reasons”.
Ms Bialek-Szymanska said the breed was not under any restrictions at the time of acquiring the dogs, and claimed they became an issue for her landlord once the breed type was added to a list of prohibited dogs in the UK.
Under the terms of the letting agreement, Mr Duffy said, the decision to permit pets is at the discretion of the landlord; he denied there was implied consent to have the two new dogs live in the property.
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He argued that Túath Housing Association had a “duty of care” to other residents and said the two dogs in this case, “regardless of how well behaved and trained they might be”, are not permitted as pets.
As the tenant had not complied with directions to remove the dogs, a notice of termination was issued in January last year, ordering them to vacate by February.
Mr Duffy said Túath Housing Association would permit the family to remain, “as they were good tenants”, if the two dogs were removed.
The tribunal found Ms Bialek-Szymanska and her family to be overholding and ordered them to give up possession of the property within 28 days.
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