Housing charity Threshold has said that the majority of tenants it helped in the last quarter of 2022 were at risk of homelessness as their landlord was selling their home.
Threshold said that between October and December it prevented over 2,300 people from being made homeless and the majority of eviction notices being given to renters are invalid.
It comes amid an extreme shortage of properties available to rent and ahead of the end of the Government's eviction ban, which is due to expire at the end of March.
Threshold's National Advocacy Manager Ann-Marie O’Reilly has said the charity has helped a consistent number of people throughout 2022 at about 20,000.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Ms O'Reilly said about 36% of the people who came to Threshold for the first time in the last quarter had received a notice of termination from their landlord and more than 50% of those were invalid.
"So, what that means for the tenant is they don't have to vacate the property," she said.
"That notice is invalid. The landlord cannot act on it."
She said Threshold looks at termination notices and acts and advises the tenant on what to do.
When the note was invalid, the charity was able to keep the person in their home, "which is always a very positive outcome."
She said that Threshold sees "people from all across society" coming to it.
"So, as regards who's receiving the notices of termination that could be single people, families, single parents and where the risk really is heightened is how will that person be able to find another home," Ms O'Reilly said.
"And that's where challenges can really arise."
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She added that people on Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) tend to find it a greater challenge when looking for another place to live.
Families are also having difficulty with housing as some landlords are not keen on having children in the house, she said.
On the current Government imposed ban on evictions, she said for anyone who received a notice during the eviction ban that timeline remains the same and anyone who received a notice of termination that was meant to end during the eviction ban, their date changes and they now have a deferred date which will depend on the length of the tenancy they had.
She said Threshold would like to see more long-lasting solutions to this problem.
"What we'd much prefer to see is efforts to make renting far more secure, or where [the] landlord does choose to leave the market, the tenant doesn't have to leave the home, we've put forward proposals about how the local authorities or perhaps approved housing bodies could purchase those homes."
