A property company has been directed to stop requiring tenants to disclose their income details on housing assistance applications in order to have them signed and pay \u20ac7,500 in compensation to a man who challenged the practice.<\/p>\n
The direction came after the firm refused to fill out the landlord section of the rent<\/a> supplement form for a tenant unless he showed it his full application to the Department of Social Protection<\/a>, including a disclosure of his income. <\/p>\n The Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) imposed a compliance direction on the landlord, property developer MKN Properties Group, after finding it to have breached of the Equal Status Act 2000 in a decision published on Thursday. <\/p>\n Tenant Greg Rogers had alleged discrimination on housing assistance grounds against a company in the MKN Group, Prism Properties Ltd, his landlord of 18 years at a house in Sutton<\/a>, Co Dublin<\/a>. <\/p>\n The tribunal heard that in April 2025 Rogers sent his landlord a copy of the rent supplement form asking it to fill out part nine, which asks for details on the property, the rent, the history of the tenancy and the landlord\u2019s own details. <\/p>\n He had left the other sections blank, including declarations of personal financial information including income, savings and investments, he said. <\/p>\n He told the WRC that was \u201cbetween me and the department\u201d. <\/p>\n The form was returned to him unsigned, and the parties were left at an impasse, the tribunal heard at a hearing last month. <\/p>\n Company director Niamh McKeon said: \u201cWe are not discriminating against Mr Rogers in any way. I\u2019ve never not signed a complete and signed application for rent supplement or HAP [housing assistance payment].\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cTenants have sent blank forms. We have said we cannot fill in a blank form. The form is designed by the department, not by ourselves,\u201d she told the WRC last month.<\/p>\n McKeon maintained that part nine of the form was \u201cnot a stand-alone part of the form\u201d. Rogers said parts one to eight were \u201cbetween me and the Department of Social Protection\u201d and that the landlord\u2019s part was a separate statutory declaration. <\/p>\n Questioned on her position by adjudicator Donal Moore, McKeon said the landlord section required her to attest to the accuracy of the tenant\u2019s submission. <\/p>\n Moore put it to her that she couldn\u2019t attest to the accuracy of everything in parts one to eight, such as the details of Rogers\u2019s bank account. <\/p>\n McKeon said she was required to confirm the names of the occupants of the property. Moore said these were details sought in part nine. <\/p>\n Upholding Rogers\u2019s discrimination complaint, Moore awarded him \u20ac7,500. <\/p>\n He ruled the landlord\u2019s refusal to fill out part nine unless the complainant disclosed \u201cunnecessary personal information\u201d was less favourable treatment on the housing assistance ground. <\/p>\n \u201cI direct the respondent to discontinue the practice of requiring applicants for rent supplement or other housing assistance schemes to disclose personal or financial information contained in sections of application forms that do not require verification by the respondent,\u201d Moore added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A property company has been directed to stop requiring tenants to disclose their income details on housing assistance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,20812,52,18,19,17,4097,81954,81],"class_list":["post-613711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-department-of-social-protection","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-renting","tag-sutton","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117015486633308778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}