Resources · Cluster B
Judgment mortgage, garnishee, instalment order, sheriff — what the Irish enforcement toolkit actually delivers, what it doesn't, and why the recovery math for landlords is harder than commercial creditors expect.
If you've Googled "how to put a lien on someone in Ireland," you're probably a landlord whose tenant has stopped paying, or whose tenancy has just ended with arrears outstanding. The instinct is right — Irish law does provide for "liens" against debtors, in the form of judgment mortgages, and they can be a powerful recovery tool. They are also, for the typical Irish renter, often unavailable in practice. The system was designed for a different demographic than the one currently renting privately, and the tools work very differently in landlord-tenant cases than they do in commercial debt cases.
This article walks through the full Irish enforcement toolkit, what each tool delivers, and what shelter.ie's productised approach gets you that DIY enforcement typically misses. We're going to be honest with you about what works and what doesn't — that's the only kind of content worth publishing on a topic this technical.
A "lien" in the lay sense — a claim registered against someone's property to secure a debt — requires a court judgment as its predicate. You can't just register a lien because someone owes you money; you have to first prove the debt and have a court (or, for tenancy matters, the RTB) issue an order saying so.
For landlord-tenant arrears, the path to a judgment looks like this:
1. Notice of Termination served on arrears grounds (28-day cure period, formal wording, properly served) 2. RTB application filed if the tenant doesn't cure the arrears or vacate 3. RTB adjudication — the first hearing 4. RTB determination order — the document that establishes the debt 5. District Court enforcement order — converts the RTB determination into a court judgment if the tenant doesn't comply
Steps 1–4 are RTB process, governed by the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. Steps 5+ move into court enforcement under the Enforcement of Court Orders Acts and related procedures.
Our RTB Acceleration Pack handles steps 1–4 at a flat €2,000. Step 5 onward is post-determination enforcement, which is what this article is mostly about.
The closest Irish equivalent to "putting a lien on someone" is the judgment mortgage. It's a security registered against any property the debtor owns, converting the unsecured judgment debt into a charge against real property. When the debtor sells the property, the judgment mortgage has to be paid out before they receive proceeds.
The process is administrative rather than judicial — once you have a court judgment, you don't need a fresh court application:
1. Obtain the court judgment (RTB determination + District Court enforcement order) 2. Have the court officer certify the relevant form 3. Lodge the certified form with Tailte Éireann (formerly PRA / Property Registration Authority):
4. Pay the registration fee (€175 as of 2025)
Once registered, the judgment mortgage stays on the title for 30 years and cannot be renewed or re-registered. It accrues interest at 2% per annum from the date of judgment (reduced from 8% on 1 January 2017). When the property is sold, the judgment mortgage is paid out from the sale proceeds (after any prior-ranking charges like an actual mortgage).
Sources for the above: Tailte Éireann — Judgment Mortgages Practice Directions ; Tailte Éireann — LR Rule 110.
The catch. A judgment mortgage requires the debtor to own property. Most Irish renters don't. This is the core recovery-math problem we keep returning to in shelter.ie content. Of every 10 cases where a landlord wants to "put a lien on someone," typically:
The judgment mortgage is the most powerful recovery tool in Irish civil enforcement. It's also the one most often unavailable to landlords because of who their debtors are.
A garnishee order attaches a debt that a third party owes to your debtor. If your tenant is owed money by their employer, a contractor they've worked for, or a bank holding their funds, a garnishee order requires that third party to pay the money to you instead.
The process: application to the court, supported by an affidavit identifying the third party and the debt owed. If the court is satisfied, a garnishee order issues directing the third party to pay over the funds.
Who it works against:
The catch. Garnishee against bank accounts is one-shot — you get whatever's in there at the moment of garnishee, and if it's small, you've used the tool and got little. Garnishee against employers feels like wage attachment, but Ireland's actual wage-attachment regime is more restrictive (see Tool 3).
The single most important fact about Irish civil debt enforcement: attachment of earnings is not generally available for civil debt in Ireland. It is reserved by statute for maintenance orders under family law — child maintenance and spousal maintenance. It is not generally available to a private creditor, including a landlord seeking to recover unpaid rent.
This is one of the most common misconceptions in landlord forums and informal advice columns. Landlords assume that an Irish equivalent of UK-style "attachment of earnings" is available. It isn't, for civil debt. (Citizens Information — Enforcement of Debt Judgments confirms this.)
What you can do is the closest equivalent: an instalment order (next section).
An instalment order is a District Court order requiring the debtor to pay the judgment in structured monthly instalments calibrated to their actual ability to pay. The court holds an examination of the debtor's means and sets the monthly figure based on income, dependants, essential outgoings, and other obligations.
The process: application to the District Court after a judgment is in place. The debtor is summoned to a means examination. The court sets the instalment order. Compliance is monitored; default can lead to committal proceedings (the threat of imprisonment for debt is largely theoretical in Ireland but exists on the statute book).
Why it's the underused tool for low-income tenant cases: see our case study of Maree Egan — €4,307 in arrears, recovered via four monthly instalments of €1,000 plus a €307 final payment. For low-income tenants who can't pay a lump sum, structured monthly payments are the realistic recovery mechanism. A lump-sum order against a tenant with no savings is worth less than the paper it's printed on. An instalment order against the same tenant, properly enforced with default-acceleration, can deliver real cash over 12–24 months.
The catch. Compliance can drift. Tenants with limited means face competing pressures (other arrears, healthcare costs, change of employment). We typically build a default-acceleration clause into instalment proposals — a missed payment triggers the full balance owing — to maintain recovery pressure.
Under the Enforcement of Court Orders Acts, a successful judgment can be enforced by execution against goods — a sheriff or county registrar seizes the debtor's attachable goods and sells them to satisfy the judgment.
The process: application to the court for an execution order; the order is sent to the sheriff for the relevant area; the sheriff attempts to seize attachable goods; if any are seized, they're sold and the proceeds applied to the judgment.
The catch. Execution against goods is largely symbolic for typical renters. Renters by definition don't own real property; their attachable goods are usually limited to furniture, electronics, vehicles in some cases. The realistic recovery is often €0–€500 after sheriff fees. The tool exists; the recovery rarely justifies the cost.
It's slightly more useful as commercial pressure — the prospect of a sheriff visit can sometimes prompt a tenant to make a deal — than as a direct recovery mechanism.
Not a court tool — a commercial-reputation tool. Stubbs Gazette is Ireland's main commercial credit reference publication. Listing a judgment debt with Stubbs doesn't recover money directly, but it appears in the debtor's credit profile and can affect their access to future credit, mortgages, and certain employment.
The process: straightforward — provide Stubbs with the judgment debt details and pay the listing fee. Listing happens within days.
The catch. Stubbs is most effective against debtors who care about their credit profile — i.e., debtors who plan to apply for credit in the future. Tenants who have already accepted a low-credit-rated existence (or who don't engage with formal credit at all) aren't moved by it.
Outsourcing recovery to a regulated debt collector (Stubbs Gazette themselves run a recovery service; EOS KSI and Cabot Financial are other established Irish operators) typically delivers some incremental recovery via persistent contact and commercial pressure.
Cost structure: typically a percentage of recovered amount (15–35%) rather than upfront fees. You pay if they recover; you pay nothing if they don't. The percentage is significant — but a percentage of something is often better than 100% of nothing.
For a typical Irish landlord with a tenant in arrears at the RTB statutory ceiling (~€27,600), the realistic 24-month recovery profile looks something like:
| Tool | Realistic recovery | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Judgment mortgage | Property-owning tenant: full | Most renters don't own — typically €0 |
| Garnishee | €0–€2,000 | One-shot if bank account; ongoing if employment-related |
| Instalment order | €5,000–€10,000 over 12–24 months | If tenant has employment and complies |
| Sheriff / goods | €0–€500 | Largely symbolic |
| Stubbs listing | €0 direct | Pressure tool |
| Debt collector | 15–35% of any further recovery | Percentage-based |
Realistic 24-month total recovery on a €27,600 award against a typical renter: €5,000–€12,000 — i.e., 18–43% of the awarded figure. (Higher-end recovery requires either a property-owning tenant or sustained employment + instalment compliance.)
This is the recovery-math reality the landlord-side ecosystem in Ireland has not been honest about. The €27,600 RTB award figure feels like a win; the €7,000 you actually collect over two years is the cleaner picture. See our case study of the €27,600 statutory cap for the full analysis.
Post-RTB enforcement is not part of our standard packs (Cash-for-Keys, RTB Acceleration, Documentation & Evidence are about getting the tenant out and the determination order in hand). Enforcement is a separate engagement, priced case-by-case.
What we do for clients in the post-determination enforcement phase:
1. Asset check on the debtor before recommending tools — does the tenant own property, have employment, have visible income? 2. Strategic sequencing — judgment mortgage if available; instalment order if employment-based; Stubbs listing for pressure; debt collector partnership for ongoing collection 3. Solicitor partnership for the actual judgment mortgage applications, instalment order applications, garnishee applications — these are District Court matters typically requiring a solicitor on the record 4. Quarterly review — circumstances change; tenants who couldn't pay last quarter sometimes can this quarter 5. Realistic expectation-setting from day one — the recovery-math conversation we've outlined in this article, applied to your specific case
Email hello@shelter.ie for a quote on post-determination enforcement work.
The Irish landlord-side enforcement system has structural problems that no individual landlord can solve alone:
1. The most powerful tool (judgment mortgage) requires the debtor to own property — typically not true of renters 2. Wage attachment for civil debt isn't available 3. The deposit cap (1 month, statutorily) means front-end protection is minimal 4. The RTB damages cap (€20,000 / two years' arrears) limits the formal recovery ceiling 5. Court enforcement post-RTB adds 6–12 months to the timeline
This is the reform argument that needs making in Irish housing policy. We make it in our blog content (see Ireland vs Europe: where landlords have it better for the comparative analysis). For the individual landlord with a current case, though, the answer is the practical one in this article: know which tools work for your specific tenant, deploy them in the right sequence, and have realistic expectations about the recovery percentage.
The legal route is also the cheaper route — that point we keep making about Cash-for-Keys vs RTB Acceleration extends here too. The cleanest recovery profile for most cases isn't winning at the RTB and then chasing enforcement for two years. It's getting the tenant out via cash-for-keys negotiation in the first six weeks, accepting a partial waiver of historic arrears in the deal, and re-letting the property. Six weeks of foregone rent + €4,000 cash settlement is, for most cases, a better outcome than 24 months of enforcement work to recover 20% of the determined figure.
That arithmetic is what shelter.ie was built to make obvious to landlords who are still hoping the system will deliver something it isn't designed to deliver.
All sources verified live as of 2026-04-25.
Free 15-minute consult. We'll map the right tools to your specific tenant and case.
Book your consult →