Guides
Each of these carries something the first search result usually does not: a worked example, a decision point, or the mistake people actually make. Every figure comes from the rules layer this site calculates with, so a threshold cannot be right on a calculator and stale in an article.
Reading the register
What the published sale records actually mean, including the two flags that make a price misleading if you miss them.
Why the price on the register is not what the buyer paid
About 10.4% of sales in our town-level comparison sample are filed without the VAT the buyer paid on top. A €400,000 new build appears as €352,423. How to spot one and what to add back.
What a house actually gained between two sales
1,099 properties in our town-level comparison sample have sold more than once. Matching the two sales gives a real gain on a real house, which is a different thing to a national index.
How to read an entry on the Property Price Register
The date is not the sale date, the address is whatever the solicitor typed, and about 15.2% of entries in our town-level comparison sample carry no Eircode. What each field means.
The Property Price Register itself
Every recorded sale by county, town and street, with the flags shown on each one rather than buried in a note.
Buying
What you can borrow, what the State gives back, and what happens between sale agreed and the keys.
Stamp Duty on a house, and when the 6% band bites
1% up to €1 million, 2% to €1.5 million and 6% above it, charged in slices rather than all at one rate. What that comes to on a real price.
Help to Buy and the First Home Scheme, and where each stops
Help to Buy is the lowest of three amounts, and the third one catches most people. What each limit is and which one binds first.
What you can borrow, and the fifteen per cent that breaks the rule
Four times income for a first time buyer, three and a half for everybody else, ten per cent deposit. Banks may lend above those limits on a share of their book.
The survey, the solicitor and the snag list
What a survey does and does not cover, what a solicitor is actually checking, and why a snag list on a new build is a different job.
Sale agreed to closing, and what is actually happening
Sale agreed binds nobody. What happens between then and the keys, roughly how long each part takes, and where the time actually goes.
Owning
What a property costs to hold once it is yours.
Renting and letting
Rent reviews, deposits, notice, and the reliefs on either side of a tenancy.
How to claim the Rent Tax Credit
The Rent Tax Credit is worth up to €1,000 for a single renter and €2,000 for a jointly assessed couple. Who can claim it, and the step people forget.
Rent a Room relief and the €14,000 cliff edge
Rent a Room relief exempts up to €14,000 a year from income tax. One euro over and the whole amount is taxable, not just the excess. How the cliff works.
What a landlord has to send you when the rent changes
A rent review notice must reach you and the Residential Tenancies Board on the same day, with the working and three comparable properties shown.
What to check before you sign a tenancy
The things worth establishing before you sign an Irish tenancy agreement, including the one question that decides whether rent control protects you at all.
Deposits, and what a landlord can actually keep
A deposit cannot exceed one month's rent, and there are four grounds for keeping any of it. What to do when it is not returned.
How much notice either side has to give
The landlord tables changed on 1 March 2026 and are longer than most guides still say. Both sets of figures, by how long the tenancy has run.
What to do when the rent goes up by more than it should
Check the amount, the interval and the notice, in that order. Then the Residential Tenancies Board dispute route, and what it can and cannot get back.
Whether your tenancy is registered, and why it matters
Registration is the landlord's duty, not yours, and an unregistered tenancy still has every protection. What it changes in practice.
What replaced Rent Pressure Zones
What ended on 28 February 2026, what took over the next day, and the one piece of the old system that still changes the answer.