Countries · Ireland
What to check in Ireland before you sign.
The costliest defect appears in no listing: an extension without permission. It makes the house hard to sell and hard to mortgage. The seven-year rule does not cure it.
What costs the most money in Ireland
An extension over the 40 square metre exemption limit, or one breaching height, boundary or window rules, is an unauthorised development. After seven years the authority can no longer enforce. But the work does NOT become legal: it remains without permission. Buyers and lenders still ask for a Certificate of Compliance from an engineer or surveyor.
A seller who conceals this before contracts can see the sale unwound.
Purchase costs
1 to 6% stamp duty plus solicitor and fees
of the purchase price, on top of the price in the listing.
- Stamp duty, banded by purchase price1, 2 or 6%
- Stamp duty on buying ten houses or more15 %
- Solicitor for the conveyancingno statutory rate
- VAT on the fee, Land Registry charge and searchescome on top
Source: Stamp duty at the Revenue rates, for instruments from 2 October 2024. For the remaining items, Citizens Information names no amounts. There is no statutory rate for solicitors' fees. Some charge a flat fee, some a percentage, and VAT comes on top. Shopping around is worth more here than elsewhere. The tax burden itself, at one percent, is far lower than in Germany or Austria.
The trap for tenants
The rental authority itself found 3,000 cases where the rent may breach the ceiling of a Rent Pressure Zone. They were not found through complaints but by matching data at the level of the individual home. Anyone assuming an unlawful increase comes to light on its own is wrong: it comes to light only when someone does the arithmetic.
On top of that, 6,027 notices were issued this year alone, because landlords had never registered the tenancy at all.
Energy and the duty to renovate
The Building Energy Rating (BER, A1 to G) is mandatory for sale and letting, and stricter than elsewhere. The rating must appear in EVERY advertisement, and the buyer receives the BER together with the Advisory Report before closing. Every certificate is publicly verifiable in the national BER register.
A breach is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to €5,000 per instance. There is no letting ban above a given rating.
Source: European Union (Energy Performance of Buildings) Regulations 2012 (S.I. No. 243 of 2012)
Certificate validity: 10 years
What to watch for in Ireland in particular
The price in the listing here is not the end of the negotiation, but its beginning. The median sale price in the first quarter of 2026 was seven percent above the original asking price. This is not an outlier from a hot quarter but the result of a persistently tight supply.
Nationwide, 11,800 properties were for sale at the end of the quarter, and the median property was off the market after just over a month. Anyone who bases their budget on the listing is therefore using the wrong figure.
Source: MyHome Property Report Q1 2026, Bank of Ireland, 09.04.2026
Official maps in Ireland
3 map layers lie directly over your property.
Not as an average for the district, but at your exact address, with a legend and a visible source. Every layer can be switched on separately.
Check it yourself
The official bodies in Ireland.
These bodies are grouped by category: property and encumbrances, energy, natural hazards and more. The report on your property names the responsible bodies, with the date checked and a link. A figure you cannot verify is not a figure, it is a claim.
over 100
official data sources
4
categories
What this costs
€5.1bn
is what companies, funds and public bodies spent on Irish homes in 2025. One in five homes sold did not go to a household. As a private buyer you are often bidding against someone who decides faster and needs no mortgage.
Source: Central Statistics Office, Residential Property Transactions by Non-Households 2025
3,000
cases were found by the rental authority itself, where the rent may breach the ceiling of a Rent Pressure Zone. Not through complaints, but by matching the data home by home. A rent set too high only comes to light when someone does the arithmetic.
Source: Residential Tenancies Board, Director's Quarterly Update Q4 2025 (ESRI, Individual Property Level Analysis)
These numbers arise after the signature. The report does the maths before it.
The market in Ireland
63,440 dwelling purchases were filed with the tax authority in 2025, worth €26.9 billion. As a private buyer you are often bidding against someone who decides faster and needs no mortgage.
Source: Central Statistics Office, Residential Property Transactions by Non-Households 2025
A real dossier from this country
See what the analysis found on an actual listing in Ireland — every figure with its source.
Open the example dossierOther countries