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27 2004

Residential Tenancies Act 2004

PART 7

Registration of Tenancies

Chapter 1

Private residential tenancies register

Establishment of register.

127. —(1) The Board shall, as soon as practicable after the establishment day, establish and maintain a register which shall be known as the “private residential tenancies register” and is in this Act referred to as the “register”.

(2) There shall be registered in the register each tenancy of a dwelling in the State the subject of an application for registration made under, and in accordance with, this Part.

(3) The form of the register, the types of information to be contained in it, the format of any aspect of that information and any other matters relevant to the maintenance of the register shall be such as the Board determines from time to time.

(4) Save under and in accordance with this Act and subject to subsection (5), no information contained in the register shall be disclosed to any person.

(5) Subsection (4) does not apply to a disclosure of information contained in the register by—

(a) a member of the Board,

(b) a member of a committee of the Board,

(c) a member of staff of the Board,

(d) a mediator or adjudicator, or

(e) a person whose services are provided to the Board under section 167 ,

in the performance of any of his or her functions under this Act, being a disclosure the making of which is necessary for the performance by him or her of any such function.

Published register.

128. —(1) The Board shall, as soon as practicable after the establishment of the register, prepare a document (in this Act referred to as the “published register”).

(2) Subject to subsections (3) and (4), the published register shall consist of an extract of the information contained in the register.

(3) The extent of that extract shall be such as the Board determines is likely to make the published register useful to members of the public.

(4) The published register shall not contain any information, as respects a particular dwelling, that discloses or could reasonably lead to the disclosure of—

(a) the identity of the landlord or the tenant or tenants of the dwelling,

(b) the amount of the rent payable under a tenancy of the dwelling.

(5) The form of the published register, the format of any aspect of the information contained in it and any other matters relevant to its maintenance shall be such as the Board determines from time to time.

Inspection of published register.

129. —(1) The published register shall be kept at an office that is designated, for the time being, by the Board for that purpose.

(2) The published register shall be made available for inspection, at all reasonable times, at that office and by such other means, if any, as the Board may determine.

(3) A fee of such amount as the Board determines to be reasonable may be charged in respect of the inspection of the published register.

Register and published register may be kept in electronic form.

130. —The register and the published register may each be prepared and maintained otherwise than in a legible form but only if that form allows the particular register to be converted into a legible form and any entry in it to be copied or reproduced in a legible form.

Publication of aggregated details derived from register.

131. —(1) Without prejudice to section 128 , the Board may publish details concerning the private rented sector derived from the register, being details of an aggregated nature.

(2) In this section—

“details of an aggregated nature” means details of such a nature as could not reasonably lead to a disclosure of the kind mentioned in section 128 (4) occurring;

“private rented sector” has the same meaning as it has in section 151 .

Furnishing of entries in registers, etc.

132. —(1) On application by the landlord or tenant of a dwelling, the Board shall, on being supplied by the landlord or tenant with such information as it may require for the purpose of confirming the identity of the applicant concerned, provide to him or her a copy of the entry in respect of that dwelling in the register.

(2) On application by a person who is not the landlord or tenant of a particular dwelling, the Board shall provide to him or her a copy of the entry in respect of that dwelling in the published register (but not the entry in the register).

(3) A fee of such amount as the Board determines to be reasonable may be charged in respect of the provision of a copy of an entry under subsection (1) or (2).

(4) A copy of an entry in the register or the published register purporting to be certified by an officer of the Board as being a true copy of that entry shall, without proof of that person's authority to so certify the copy, of any signature of the person appearing on the copy or that he or she is or was an officer of the Board, be received in evidence in any proceedings and shall be presumed to be such a copy unless the contrary is shown.

(5) Evidence that any particular matter in respect of a dwelling stood registered in the register on a particular date may be given by the production of a copy of the entry in respect of that dwelling under subsection (4) and which copy bears that date beside, or as part of, the certification mentioned in that subsection.

Confirmation to parties to tenancy as to particulars specified in an application under section 134 .

133. —(1) Either party to a tenancy of a dwelling may request the Board to confirm to him or her what are the particulars specified in an application made under section 134 to register the tenancy.

(2) The Board shall comply with such a request if it is satisfied, having been supplied by the person making the request with such information as it may require, that the person is a party to the tenancy.