Short Term Letting

Short Term Letting

Short-term letting’ is defined as ‘the use of a bedroom or bedrooms in a home as paid overnight guest accommodation for a continuous period of up to two weeks. The rules around short-term letting are based on regulations introduced in July 2019.

Where a house or apartment is a person’s principal private residence, they will be permitted to rent out a room (or rooms) within their home for short-term letting without restriction (e.g. B&B-type use) but will only be allowed to sub-let their entire house without planning permission on the short-term market for a cumulative period of 90 days or less annually.

This requirement for planning permission only applies to homeowners in Rent Pressure Zones where residential accommodation is in high demand and where homeowners:

  • Let out their entire home (principal private residence) for short-term lets of more than 90 days in total while they are away. (Your principal private residence is the place where you ordinarily live).
  • Let out a second property for short-term lets.

Exemptions from the planning permission requirements

You do not have to apply for planning permission if:

  • Your property already has planning permission to be used for tourism or short-term letting purposes.
  • You rent your property out under the rent-a-room scheme
  • You are ‘home-sharing’. Home-sharing is where a homeowner rents a room or rooms in their principal private residence for short-term lets while they are also occupying it. (In this situation you can offer unlimited short-term lettings for less than 14 days at a time.)
  • You rent out your entire principal private residence for short-term visitors for less than 90 days a year while you are temporarily away. 

Short Term Lettings

 

Registering with the planning authority

In certain situations where you may not need planning permission you will need to register with the planning authority to get an exemption from the requirement for planning permission. This applies if:

  • You rent a room in your principal private residence for short-term lets over 14 days while you are also occupying it.
  • You are going to be away from your principle private residence, and you want to let it out on a short-term basis, for less than 90 days in a calendar year.

If you are offering short-term lettings in an RPZ area, but are exempt from the planning permission requirement, you still need to register with the local authority in order to avail of this exemption.

There is no charge to register your short-term let with the Local Authority.  

You must complete the following forms and provide any additional documents needed and send them to your local authority within the required time limits.

  • Form 15 – Start of year notification form. This form should be sent to your local authority within 4 weeks of the start of each year, and no later than 2 weeks before the first short-term let of the year for that property.

 

  • Form 16 – 90 day threshold notification form. This should only be sent to your local authority if you are a homeowner temporarily away from your home and reach the 90 day threshold during the year. You should submit the form no more than 2 weeks after the 90 day threshold has been reached.

 

  • Form 17 – End of year notification form. This should be sent to your local authority between the 1 and 28 January of the year after the lettings have taken place.

You will have to provide documentation proving that the property is your principal private residence.

Forms should be returned to Planningenforcement@meathcoco.ie

 

 

Applying for planning permission

For owners who wish to operate new short-term lettings, they should apply for planning permission.

When making its decision on a planning application about short-term letting the planning authority will take a number of things into account, such as whether the area is experiencing high housing demand, high rent inflation and insufficient supply of housing.

To apply for planning permission to use a property for short-term lettings the usual fees for ‘change in use’ of a building from residential to commercial apply, see below:

Short Term Lettings Fees for Planning Permission

How to apply for Planning permission: apply-for-planning-permission

What happens if I don’t follow the regulations?

Under the Planning and Development Act 2000 planning authorities can take legal action if a property does not have the required permission, or where terms of the permission have not been met.

From 1 September 2022, property owners and websites that advertise short-term lets, will both be fined if the properties being advertised do not have the correct planning permission.

 

For further information please see the links and contact details below:

Relevant Legislation:  (S.I. no. 235 of 2019) Planning and Development Act 2000 (Exempted Development) (no.2) Regulations 2019