Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Kalpana  Begum

Nadia Sultana Poly

Representatives

Ms Kalbana Begum represented by Randall Burkhardt of Threshold

Ms Nadia Sultana Poly represented by Mr Terence Morgan

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00073092-001

03/07/2025

The issue in contention is an Equal Status complaint regarding alleged Discrimination on the Housing Assistance Grounds. The Complainants are a couple who have been resident in a property in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, for some years. The Respondent is a Landlord who has requested that they vacant the property. HAP was approved for the couple in August 2024. This was allegedly declined by the Respondent and alleged prompted the demanded termination of the Tenancy.

The Complainants were represented by Threshold- Mr Burkhardt. Oral testimony was given in support of a detailed Written Submission.

HAP was approved for the Complainant on the 8th August 2024. They immediately forwarded the necessary paperwork to the Landlord. Despite an initial verbal agreement, the forms were not completed by the Landlord. An ES1 From was submitted to the Landlord on the 7th February 2025. that The Landlord replied on the 21 February 2025, refusing HAP, and issuing a Notice of Termination. The Landlord indicated that they needed the property for their own personal use.

The Oral testimony from the Complainant was very heartful and direct. They were immigrants to Ireland and had children. Finding another Property to rent was going to be extremely challenging for them.

ADJ-00004100 and ADJ-00019273 were cited as Legal precedents.

The Respondents, who were represented/assisted by Mr Morgan, agreed that they had issued a verbal request for the Complainants to vacate the property in August 2024 followed by a legal Termination of Tenancy letter in February 2025. This had nothing to do with HAP as they required the property for their own personal use. It was pointed out that they had a good relationship with the Tenants and wanted to afford them every chance – a very extended notice period - to get another property to rent.

Later in the year, (5th September 2025) they had completed the HAP forms - they were familiar with HAP having participated in the process a number of times in the past. (Written evidence of a former Tenant was supplied). It was denied that the proper HAP forms had been passed to them in early August 2024. Incomplete forms had been passed by a messaging AP. No written notice of Termination had been issued in August 2024 -a verbal request was made, and it was verbally agreed that the tenants could have six months to find an alternative Residence. A Written notice of Termination would only issue, as a formality, in mid-2025.

Discrimination of any form was robustly denied -they had simply wanted to re occupy the Property, personally, on a return from the UK. The had rented out the property on a short-term basis while they had relocated to the UK. They were of Indian/Pakistani origin and had family and business interests in both the UK and Ireland. Their relationship with the tenants had been excellent.

The Termination process was now, at the date of the Hearing, with the Residential Tenancies Board. An outcome was awaited.

3:1        The Legal position.

The sole issue for determination of this complaint is whether the Respondent discriminated against the Complainant under the ‘housing assistance ground’ contrary to Sections 3 and 6 of the Equal Status Act 2000 (as amended), by refusing to complete its section of her HAP Application Form.

In relation to the applicable burden of proof, Section 38A of the Acts applies to all complaints of discrimination under the Equal Status Acts and requires the Complainant to establish, in the first instance, facts from which the discrimination alleged may be inferred. It is only where such a prima facie case has been established that the onus shifts to the Respondent to rebut the inference of discrimination.

Section 3 of the Equal Status Acts defines Discrimination as follows/states that:

3.— (1) For the purposes of this Act discrimination shall be taken to occur —

(a) where a person is treated less favourably than another person is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation on any of the grounds specified in subsection (2)   or, if appropriate, subsection (3B), (in this Act referred to as the ‘discriminatory grounds’) which —

(i) exists,

(ii) existed but no longer exists,

(iii) may exist in the future, or

(iv) is imputed to the person concerned,

(b) where a person who is associated with another person —

(i) is treated, by virtue of that association, less favourably than a person who is not so associated is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation, and

(ii) similar treatment of that other person on any of the discriminatory grounds would, by virtue of paragraph (a), constitute discrimination,

or

(c) where an apparently neutral provision would put a person referred to in any paragraph of section 3(2) at a particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless the provision is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary.

(3B) For the purposes of section 6(1)(c), the discriminatory grounds shall (in addition to the grounds specified in subsection (2)) include the ground that as between any two persons, that one is in receipt of rent supplement (within the meaning of section 6(8) ), housing assistance (construed in accordance with Part 4 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 ) or any payment under the Social Welfare Acts and the other is not (the   “ housing assistance ground ” )

However Legal issues notwithstanding all rest on their own evidence, both Oral & Written, and particular factual matrix.

This will be considered below.

3:2         Review of Evidence presented.

Language was a major issue in this case, and the services of two Interpreters were required. It was also overshadowed by a case before the RTB which at the time was unresolved.

It was clear that there was no major personal animosity between the Parties.

Ms. SP was the principal Respondent witness; She presented as a competent professional witness. She had, with her Partner, personal and business interests both in the UK and Ireland. At the date of the Hearing, she was resident in the UK but had lived in Ireland ,at the address concerned, in the latter half of the last decade. For family reasons she had wished to move back to Ireland and had given the Complainants notice in mid-2024. To allow the Complainants time to relocate she had offered a shorter-term tenancy in July 2024. She accepted that due to incomplete Complainant applications etc HAP had not been agreed until September 2025. She had accepted HAP from other Tenants and had no issue with it.  She resolutely denied any Discrimination against the Complainants.

The legal point being made, it appeared to the Adjudicator, allowing for Translations, was that a Landlord could validly issue a notice for Termination of a Tenancy, in this case for Personal re-occupation. This was now with the RTB.  Acceptance or Non-Acceptance of a HAP payment could not be seen to dilute this legal right.

In any event, for absolute legal clarification, she had agreed to HAP on the Property  in September of 2025.

The Complainants in their oral evidence, again heavily reliant on Translation but assisted by Mr Burkhardt of Threshold, argued that HHAP, was a vital financial issue for them and the notice to quit had been the Respondents position in response. It was clearly Discrimination.

3:3       Adjudication view

The Adjudicator accepted, somewhat reluctantly, that many of the background issues in this case are also before the RTB. At the date of the Hearing there was no decision as yet from the RTB.

All sides were under sworn Oath/Affirmation, and both gave good direct evidence. There was no question but that the Complainant’s had been excellent Tenants.

It was noted that the Respondent had been living in the UK for some time. She appeared to the Adjudication Officer to be a person of some considerable substance while the Complainants were immigrants of poor English skills living on the economic margins.

It was hard to see how the Respondent wished to leave the UK and take up residence in Clondalkin. The rent for the property that the Complainant’s were paying (It has to be noted that this Rent was adjudicated on by the RTB) as quoted in the paperwork (€1,488) is, on common observation from Media reports etc, well below the current Market rates. DAFT.ie is currently quoting an average in the region of €2,500.  

None the less she appeared to be sympathetic to the Complainant’s situation and had given very extensive notice, initially verbally and later in formal communication, to vacate. At one stage in the communications, she had offered to help them find somewhere else through her network.

It was strongly suggested by the Complainant’s that she had accepted HAP in September of 2025 as a means of “Mending her hand” prior to the WRC and the HAP Hearings. Accepting HAP, it was also suggested, would also expose the Respondent to the eyes of the Irish Revenue. These were legally unfounded assumptions that could only be assumptions without direct evidence.

It also has to be noted that the Legal question, of the propriety or not, of serving a Termination of Tenancy notice, while the Tenant is in receipt of a HAP payment is not a matter for an Equal Status Adjudication.

The Adjudication Officer, conscious of the sanctity of sworn evidence, has to proceed on the basis of general probabilities.

It was the Adjudication view, in summary, that Discrimination had taken place here, without much malign intent. The extensive time scale for vacation of the property, being allowed by the Respondents and the obvious previous good relationship between the Parties, was indicative of this. Any Discrimination was at the lower end of magnitude. The Redress aware will reflect this.

HAP, Discrimination