Landlord returns to Tipperary home to find over €14,000 worth of damage done to property

When overseas landlord Noel Cotter returned to see his rental property in Cahir, county Tipperary, the outgoing tenant had told him the house was cleared out and the floors just needed to be mopped. 

However, the house needed more than just the floors mopped, the floors needed to be completely taken up and the house needed gutting.

Noel's tenant had caused over €14,000 worth of damage to the inside and outside of the property.

In late January, 2025, the Tipperary man took to Facebook to post the condition of the property he came back to, the photographs shared showed a bathroom littered with old toilet rolls, dirt and grime everywhere, abandoned rubbish and personal items and piles of old ash from the stove.

Noel explained to Tipperary Live that the tenant in question had originally moved into the house in 2018 under a rent agreement.

Noel explained: "My wife and I built the house in 2006 and then we moved back to the UK in 2011 and we had the house rented for a number of years and people left and they came and went and then the tenant came along and she wanted to rent the house."

Noel said that he had a letting agency looking after the property and all seemed fine, the tenant rented the home for a few years and after three years she told Mr Cotter she was having problems making payments.

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Noel said: "She said she was going to go down to the council and see could she get a HAP, the House Assistance Payment and I said fine. I said I have no problem with whatever way you want to make payments, let's just agree it with the letting agency and just keep them aware.

"Everything was grand, she got the HAP and she was obviously paying her bit and then she was paying a bit to me and everything was fine."

Noel continued: "Then I decided to sell the property, she was falling behind in payments which I kind of didn't mind, I think she has a few kids, as far as I was aware she was on her own which subsequently didn't turn out to be correct but at the time it was made out that she was on her own so we were quite lenient with her with the rent."

However, after some time, Noel decided to continue to go ahead and sell the property and gave the tenant her termination of tenancy in May 2023.

The tenant then sent that letter to Tipperary County Council to inform them that he was selling the property and she had to be out by November 2023.

Noel said: "So, the council did nothing and they were obviously in communication with her and she was falling more and more behind on her payments at this stage and as it happened HAP decided to stop her payments to me because she wasn't keeping up her end of the deal with HAP."

He continued: "She wasn't making her payments and she messaged me and she said 'I can't pay HAP and I can't pay you, I can't pay everyone'. So at this point I kind of lost all faith in her but I had in the bag that she had her termination of her tenancy and she was leaving in November which is what I thought or what I presumed was going to happen so I was quite happy for her to just see the time out.

"I ended up paying her share of the HAP so I could then receive my share of the HAP, it was the only income we were getting towards the mortgage on the property."

In October 2023, Tipperary County Council contacted Noel to say that they had no place for the tenant and asked if it was possible to allow the tenant to stay in the property.

Noel said: "I said well, I wanted to sell the property. I said this is why she needs to leave and they said well we don't have anywhere for her is there any chance? They begged me and begged me and I've got emails upon emails, upon emails from them asking me would we be willing to not sell the property and keep her on.

"We decided that we would keep her on and I said to them that there would be a list of conditions for me to keep her on and they said fine send us your list of conditions and I wrote to the council and I told them what I wanted."

Noel continued: "At the time there was about €4,000 in arrears and due to mortgage interest rate hikes and payments that the tenant had missed, I wanted the arrears paid. I want the mortgage brought up to date and the rent increased as well up to  €1,500 which was in line with the normal rent for that size property."

Noel explained that the letting agency had advised him to increase the rent and told him he wasn't getting what he should be getting for the size of the property.

According to Noel, Tipperary County Council agreed to the conditions but he had "nothing in writing" to say they agreed.

However, Noel said he did have emails which clarify that they increased the tenant's HAP to meet these payments and they "did everything they possibly could to keep her in the property".

Noel clarified: "They never really wrote me a letter to say we agree to this but in principal they did because they did everything internally to keep these payments going for her to stay at the property so I just agreed to it.

Since then, Noel said everything was up to date with the HAP but he was down another €6,000 in rent from the tenant as she had not paid in the last 12 months.

Noel said: "So in the timeframe she was supposed to be for six months and it's lasted 12 months so the tenant only moved out of our property in December of last year before Christmas she moved out."

He continued: "I've had a whole 12 months of, on the council's watch basically, that the tenant hasn't paid any rent to us. I start ringing her since she was supposed to be out in October and still no sign."

By October 2023, Noel said the tenant was with the council waiting for a house in Tipperary Town.

Noel said: "The council kept telling me, we have a house for her, the house is there it's just not ready yet, it will be ready in a few weeks, we can't give you a date.

"This is October then it went into November then delay after delay and I'm still not receiving any rent and eventually she got her keys in November but she didn't move out until the middle of December."

In January 2025, Noel returned from the UK to clear out what was left in the property as it had been sold and the buyer was due to come to the house.

Noel said: "So, I went home a month ago to just clear out the house, she was messaging me saying there's not much left to do in the house I just have to mop the floors and that's it. So I went back to see the house and to clean the house out and it wasn't just the floors that needed mopping, the floors need ripping up, whatever floors are left."

Following the shocking discovery of the condition of the house, Noel contacted his solicitor to see what could be done to rectify the situation as he felt the council was partially responsible for what had happened.

Noel explained: "My solicitor says I don't have any legal position with the council because there was nothing in writing with the council to say legally that is their problem. The issue that I have and what we do have is the fact that I do have emails, I do have correspondence with the head people in the council asking me, begging me for her to stay because they have no place to put her.

"Basically, we feel that on their watch, we have been let down very badly and at least they're responsible for putting the property back to the way it was or even not putting the property back the way it was but cleaning it out."

Noel continued: "The house needs total gutting and fumigating, the house is horrible so we've written to the council, we're just waiting now, we haven't heard back from them yet so we are just waiting to hear back to see what they say."

Noel said that he has also written to Mattie McGrath in Clonmel and that he is waiting for him to get back to him too. He said: "I did email Mattie a few weeks back and got no response from him as of yet but I'm going to push that a bit more now.

"If they have any morals at all, they should get a few skips out there and guys in pickup trucks and just clean the house out even would be a minimum."

Noel said the tenant had also caused external damage to the property and an engineer's report revealed that a car parked at the property, which is still there had been involved in causing damage to the back wall of house.

The whole bumper was "busted in" and had been reversed into the back wall of the property causing it to need partial rebuilding at a cost of roughly €4,000 to €5,000.

The damage to the inside of the property means that restoration could cost Noel upwards of €10,000.

Tipperary County Council were contacted for comment, they said: "The management of HAP properties and tenancies is a contract between the tenant and owner of the property. 

"Tipperary County Council is not in a position to comment on this or any individual case."