Illegal eviction, lock-outs and cut-offs

Your landlord cannot change the locks, cut off the power or water, or remove your belongings to make you leave. That is the position whether or not a notice of termination was served, whether or not it was valid, and whether or not the termination date has passed. The only lawful route to possession in Ireland is a determination order from the RTB, enforced in the District Court. Anything else is an illegal eviction.

The RTB calls it improper conduct. It investigates lock-outs, cut-offs and intimidation on its own account and can prosecute the landlord. Separately, you can refer a dispute and the RTB can order the landlord to let you back in and award damages of up to €20,000.

If you are in danger tonight, ring the Gardaí on 999 or 112 before you read any further. Threshold is on 1800 454 454, Monday to Friday 9am to 9pm, and the call is free.

What counts as illegal eviction

The Act gives every tenant the right to peaceful and exclusive occupation of the dwelling. The landlord may enter only by arrangement, except in a genuine emergency. Any step that takes the home away from you other than through the RTB and the courts is a breach of that right.

The common forms are familiar. Changing the locks while you are out, or refusing you a key. Cutting or disconnecting the electricity, gas, water or heating, or arranging for the supplier to do it. Removing your belongings, the doors, or the furniture the landlord provided. Moving another person into the home or into your room. Standing over you while you pack. Threats, shouting at the door, repeated visits, or "inspections" every day. Telling you to be gone by a date with no notice at all.

A landlord sometimes believes that once the termination date has passed, the home is theirs to take back. It is not. Staying past a valid termination date is overholding, and the landlord's remedy for overholding is an RTB determination and then a court order, never self-help. Overholding: what it is and what happens explains both sides of that.

What to do today

Get safe first. If there are threats or violence, or you are being physically kept out with nowhere to go, ring 999 or 112. The Gardaí do not decide who may live in a home, but they deal with crime and with a breach of the peace, and a Garda record of the evening is the strongest evidence you can bring to the RTB. Ask for the incident number and the name of the Garda.

Do not force entry and do not damage anything. Breaking a window or a lock can turn you into the person who committed an offence, and it muddies a clear case. Stay calm, stay polite, and record.

Record everything. Photograph the changed lock, the removed belongings, the empty fuse board, the message that told you to go. Note the date and time, who was there and what was said. Keep every text, email and voicemail. A written note made the same day carries weight later. Put it all in your tenancy file.

Write to the landlord. Send a short message, by text or email so it is timestamped, saying that you are the tenant, that the lock-out or cut-off is unlawful, and that you require access restored at once. Keep it to facts. The letter builder has a confirm-in-writing letter you can adapt for this. If the landlord restores access, the message is still your record; if not, it shows the RTB that you asked.

Ring Threshold. 1800 454 454, Monday to Friday 9am to 9pm. Threshold's advisers deal with lock-outs daily, can contact the landlord, and can help with the RTB application. Outside those hours, the local authority's homeless service is the route to a bed for the night. The day the notice runs out lists the emergency lines.

Apply to the RTB. You can refer a dispute online on rtb.ie and ask for it to be treated as urgent. Tell the RTB separately that you want to report improper conduct, which it investigates itself. How to make an RTB dispute application covers the form.

What the RTB can do

Two things run in parallel, and they are different.

The first is your own dispute. You apply, the RTB hears it, and it can make a determination order. For a lock-out the order can direct the landlord to let you back into the home and can award damages for the breach. Mediation is free and private. Adjudication costs €30 and, since 14 September 2026, the hearing is public and the published report names both parties and the address. A determination order is enforced in the District Court, and the RTB can take that case for you.

The second is the RTB's own investigation of improper conduct. Lock-outs, cut-offs and intimidation are on the list of conduct the RTB can investigate without any application from you, and the landlord can be sanctioned and prosecuted. Reporting it costs nothing. It does not replace your dispute, because the investigation is about the landlord's conduct and not about your losses.

Illegal eviction compensation: the cap and the average

The Act caps damages for an illegal eviction or any other breach of the landlord's obligations at €20,000. That is the ceiling, not the usual figure. The RTB's published decisions show an average far below it, about €3,900 in one review, a figure to be read as approximate and not as a tariff.

The reason is that the RTB compensates proven loss, not distress on its own. Damages follow receipts: the cost of a hotel or emergency accommodation, the belongings that were lost or damaged, the extra travel, the work you missed. Keep every receipt from the first night. A clear ledger of what the lock-out cost you is what moves an award towards the cap. RTB damages: what is actually awarded sets out how awards are reasoned.

Where the landlord also kept the deposit, add that to the claim. Where the lock-out followed a notice that did not meet section 62, the notice can be referred in the same application.

If a notice was served first

A notice of termination, even a perfect one, does not let the landlord take the home back by force on the termination date. If you are still there, the landlord's route is the RTB. If the notice missed a requirement, it may be invalid and the tenancy may never have ended. Run it through the notice checker and refer it within the window: 90 days from service, or 28 days for a breach notice.

Keep paying the rent, or offering it in writing if the landlord refuses it. Rent arrears would give the landlord a ground they did not have, and an offer refused is evidence in your favour.

Harassment short of a lock-out

Repeated unannounced visits, threats about the deposit, a landlord who lets himself in, cameras in shared areas: these are breaches of the same right to peaceful occupation, and the same routes apply. Landlord harassment: what counts and what to do covers the pattern cases, and can a landlord enter without permission covers entry and viewings.

Where this leaves you

No landlord in Ireland may take a home back by changing the locks, cutting the services or removing your things. The lawful route is a determination order from the RTB and then the District Court, and nothing else. Today, get safe, ring 999 or 112 if there is danger, record what happened, write to the landlord demanding access, and ring Threshold on 1800 454 454. Then apply to the RTB, report the improper conduct, and keep every receipt, because damages up to €20,000 follow proven loss. The notice journey takes the steps in order.