Cases like this

We're new. Our cases aren't.

Ten real Irish landlord-tenant disputes from public record — RTB determination orders, court judgments, and Irish national press. None of these were Shelter clients. Each one shows how cases like yours have actually played out, and what the playbook would have been.

We launched in 2026. So when you ask "show me your wins" — fair question, and one every prospective client asks — we have to answer honestly: we don't have a case-study book of Shelter wins yet. We will, soon. What we do have in the meantime is something more useful and possibly better than what we'd have invented if we'd started two years earlier: Ireland has a public record. The RTB publishes determination orders. The courts publish judgments. The Irish Times, the Independent, RTÉ, and the Dublin Inquirer all cover the high-profile cases. We've read those records, identified the most representative ones, and written them up here — naming actual parties from public record, citing actual sources, and laying out, case by case, what shelter.ie's playbook would have been.

This is more honest than fabricated testimonials and, frankly, more interesting to read. It's also defamation-proof: Irish defamation law treats accurate reporting of public-record matters as protected. And it's a fair test of whether we know what we're doing — read the cases, read what we'd have done, decide whether we look like the people you'd want on yours.

None of the cases below were handled by Shelter.ie. Every case is sourced from public record. The "What shelter.ie's playbook would have been" sections are our analysis of what the productised service would have done, not a claim that we did it.
Cautionary — the line

Afrim Hoxha: €34,800 for changing the locks

Fortlawn Drive, Dublin 15. Changed locks during RTB proceedings. One tenant slept rough.

The cornerstone case study of why we don't cross the line. The legal route is also the cheaper route — by 6× to 11× in this specific case.

Irish Times · 11 Sept 2025

Process help

Eoghan O'Mahony's 17-month wait

Cork landlord. Carlow tenant. €20,000+ arrears. Tenant still in property as of Feb 2026.

Why early-stage cash-for-keys, run alongside the formal Notice of Termination, beats the year-long RTB-then-enforcement loop.

Irish Times · 5 Feb 2026

Process help · per-diem leverage

€21,000 plus €47.34 per day

Tallaght, Dublin 24. RTB Determination Order, August 2023.

The most underused leverage tool in Irish landlord-tenant practice — the per-day damages clock.

Irish Times · 5 Sept 2023

Toxic tenancy

€42,000 in arrears, plus threats

When a tenancy crosses from money into safety territory, the playbook changes completely.

Cash-for-keys is off the table. The Garda referral is on. The evidence pack becomes the case.

Irish Times · 9 May 2025

Pseudo-legal claim

The "elite status" tenant

RTB hearing, May 2025. Tenant claimed self-asserted "elite status" exempted her from rent.

Don't engage the substance of pseudo-legal claims — replying dignifies them. Document, file, proceed.

Irish Times · 7 May 2025

Safety-critical

Threats to murder landlord and her children

RTB eviction hearing, March 2026. Threats by tenant against landlord and family.

When safety is the priority, money is secondary. Garda-led parallel-track playbook.

Irish Times · 7 March 2026

Median outcome

Crawford & Ward v Ryan: €5,650 awarded

RTB tribunal, March 2026. €3,150 arrears + €2,500 damages for breach of obligations.

Not every case is a horror story. The benchmark for what a successfully-run RTB Acceleration looks like.

Irish Times · March 2026

Recovery — instalment

Maree Egan: €4,307 in instalments

Dublin tenant. €633/month rent unpaid for 9 months. Recovery: 4 monthly instalments + final payment.

The instalment order is the underused tool for low-income tenant cases. Bird in the hand.

Irish Times · 2024–2025

Cautionary — communication

"Tenants have no rights in this country" — €3,200

RTB tribunal, March 2025. Migrant couple. Casual hostile statement weaponised at hearing.

Communication discipline is one of the things landlords pay us for. All tenant-facing comms run through us.

Irish Times · 31 March 2025

Recovery — RTB cap

The €27,600 statutory cap

When arrears reach the RTB ceiling, the determination is the start of recovery, not the end.

Realistic 24-month recovery on a typical case: 18–43% of the awarded figure. The math is the math.

Irish Times · 2024–2025

Two patterns recur across these ten cases

Pattern A — Early intervention beats late intervention

In every case where Cash-for-Keys was viable, the negotiated exit window was widest at month 1–2 (when the tenant first stopped paying or the notice was first served) and narrowest at month 12+ (when the RTB has issued a determination order and the tenant has nothing left to lose). The O'Mahony case is the textbook example: a cash-for-keys negotiation in September 2024 likely resolves at €4,000–€5,000 total cost; the same situation in March 2026 likely settles only via Circuit Court enforcement at €15,000+.

If you're a landlord considering Shelter, the right time to call is when you first decide a tenancy isn't working — not after the RTB queue has eaten your year.

Pattern B — The line works in both directions

Hoxha (changed the locks, €34,800) and "tenants have no rights" (casual hostile language, €3,200) are the two case studies that anchor what landlords should NOT do. Both are recoverable scenarios via the legal route. The lesson runs in both directions: the law restrains landlords, but the legal route is also the cheaper route in almost every case where the alternative was tested. That's the structural observation behind shelter.ie's pricing. If the legal route weren't also the cheaper route, the pitch wouldn't work.

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