A landlord has been ordered to pay €5,000 damages to a family of six who claimed their health suffered due to mould, mildew and damp at the property.

A Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal held that Tempus Realty Holdings (Ireland) Limited failed to properly maintain the property and was liable for the “inconvenience, stress and upset” caused to tenants Radu Alexandru Szakacs and Jennifer Howe and four children.

An eviction notice served on them in January 2025 was invalid as it was served 27 days, rather than the required 28 days, after an initial rent arrears warning, the tribunal found.

The tenants were ordered to pay the landlord some €9,700 in rental arrears for the apartment at New Seskin Court, in Tallaght, Dublin. In September 2023 they stopped paying their top-up rent that supplemented the State-provided housing assistance payment after allegedly encountering issues with the unit’s cooker and mould.

Szakacs, a smoker, claimed he had breathing troubles and his family had suffered major health issues due to seven years of mould problems. He said there was mould on their towels, blinds, in the bathroom and on the balcony. They had to leave windows opening continually to ventilate the home, he said. Howe claimed they slept on mouldy beds and had mould in their water. They alleged their children suffered skin ulcers and have had to sleep on the floor.

Tempus Realty’s agent said two attempts had been made to fix a leak in the roof but the problem came under the apartment management company’s remit. The landlord did as much as it could to maintain the dwelling, and there were no mould issues in any of its apartments, the agent contended.

The RTB tribunal was satisfied on the evidence, including photographs, that there had been and continued to be problems with mould, mildew and damp at the property. A report from Dublin City Council from last October mentioned mould being present, while the evidence of the tenants was “most compelling”, the tribunal said.

It rejected the landlord’s suggestion that the management company was responsible for maintaining the property.

“The landlord has a statutory obligation to maintain the property which it has failed to do and must be liable for the inconvenience, stress and upset caused to this family by its breach of their obligation for failing to address, in a timely manner, the repair and maintenance of the property,” it said.

The tenants should pay the landlord €4,700, which is the amount owed in arrears less the €5,000 damages award, the tribunal ruled.