A tenancy termination notice issued by a Dublin landlord who claimed she wished to use the property for her daughter “after school” and as a base for when traffic was heavy has been deemed invalid.Landlord Ying Ying Lu told a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tribunal she issued the notice as she required the property on Fairview Strand, Dublin 3, for her own use, which she maintained she was legally entitled to do. Asked if she planned to live at the apartment, however, Lu said she lived in Malahide but had a daughter attending secondary school in the city centre.She told the tribunal she required the property for her daughter after school, saying the traffic between the city and Malahide was “very heavy”.Lu, who owned the property through her company Ying Ying Properties Limited, of which she said she is the sole shareholder, claimed she would stay at the home “from time to time to avoid the traffic”.She added that she would stay at their family home in Malahide when traffic was “quiet” and on the weekends.As her daughter was under the age of 18, Lu told the tribunal she would stay at the apartment with her.Her tenants argued the notice was invalid, maintaining she did not require the property for her occupation.Patrick O’Connell, who rented the property since 2009, argued the notice was invalid for several more reasons, including that neither he nor his co-tenant, Krystian Malec, was named correctly on the termination.The tribunal heard the notice was addressed to “Patrick O’Connor” and “Krystian Krystia”, with both tenants also claiming they never received it nor signed for it.Both tenants denied that a signature on an An Post receipt submitted into evidence was theirs.Lu separately said her tenants had built up rent arrears of €11,340, which O’Connell accepted. He told the tribunal he ceased paying rent over issues with water and power supply at the property.O’Connell claimed his water supply had been “cut off” from the apartment in September 2025, and that there was no hot water or running water in the toilets.However, Lu claimed the tenants stopped paying rent “before any issues arose with the water supply”.Noting that Lu’s daughter would “only use it as a base after school”, the tribunal deemed the notice of termination invalid as the use of the property.It was not satisfied she had a “bona fides requirement”, it said, as it would only be used intermittently or occasionally.It also ordered the tenants to pay €11,340 in rent arrears, saying if there were issues with a breach of Lu’s landlord obligations surrounding water or power supply, the correct course of action was to lodge a dispute with the RTB, “not to cease paying rent”.