11 evictions carried out in the last ten years in the north west were determined to be illegal, according to a new report.

The Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) published the report today, outlining the increasing prevalence of officially recorded illegal evictions among private and corporate landlords in an already precarious market for tenants.

According to CATU, 11 evictions officially classed as “illegal” took place in counties Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal between 2015 and 2024, meaning the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) itself deemed them unlawful.

An illegal eviction (sometimes called an ‘unlawful termination of tenancy’) occurs when a landlord fails to follow the process to evict a tenant set out in the Residential Tenancies Act.

The most obvious cases involve landlords changing the locks or physically evicting a tenant. Others may involve intimidation or harassment that force a tenant into leaving.

By law, if a tenant refuses to leave, the only way a landlord can enforce an eviction is through the courts, even if an RTB determination order has been issued or the tenant is in breach of their legal obligations, for example if they’ve fallen into rent arrears.

However, landlords frequently ignore this requirement.

One of the authors of the report, Fiadh Tubridy says there is a loophole in the legislation.