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HOUSING MINISTER SIMON Coveney has said his department will look into clarifying guidelines on when a rental property becomes a commercial one.
Yesterday An Bord Pleanála upheld a Dublin City Council (DCC) ruling that an apartment owner in Temple Bar needs to apply for planning permission if they want to continue to rent the property out via Airbnb.
Speaking to reporters today, Coveney said he thinks An Bord Pleanála made the right decision.
“I think we also, as a department with a responsibility for policy and guidelines around planning, need to provide guidelines and clarity now for chief executives across all local authorities.
“As far as I can see this was a property that was being used almost like a B&B, whereby there was regular turnover every couple of days,” Coveney said of the property in Temple Bar.
The minister said his department would work on the issue in the coming days and issue a letter about guidelines to local authorities, especially those in urban areas.
He said it’s important property owners also “know where they stand”.
Coveney noted that many people in Ireland use Airbnb successfully, but said: “I think it’s a different thing when a property is for sale and it’s being advertised as having an €80,000 income from Airbnb with turnover every few days, that is effectively no different to a hostel-style or B&B-style accommodation.”
Need for regulation
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Dr Lorcan Sirr, a lecturer in Housing and Urban Economics at the Dublin Institute of Technology, said DCC needs an official policy about Airbnb usage in the city.
During the summer, there were over 3,300 apartments in the middle of the city that were available on Airbnb. In the middle of a housing crisis that’s a significant number and arguably a driver of rents.
DCC’s deputy planning officer Mary Conway told the same programme if a property is continually being let on a short-term basis the council would consider that to be a material change of use.
Conway said DCC is preparing a written submission to the Department of Housing asking it to update planning legislation in this regard.
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Eric Chubb: This is great news. In the apartment complex where I live, about 20% of the apartments were being used for short-term lets, including the one above us and below us. This had lots of negative consequences, including complete randomers coming and going and wheeling noisy luggage around the clock, noise and antisocial behaviour, external cleaners causing congestion in corridors, increased footfall in common areas, and the use of our concierge as a meeting point and luggage store. Basically, it turned our apartment block into an unstaffed hotel, where long-term residents were being subjected to all of the above while the landlords letting out their apartments were making a tidy earner on the side. We ourselves had awful problems with people arriving in the early hours of the morning making a racket, going out on their balcony and blaring music or being obnoxiously loud. We even had one guy spitting over the edge of the balcony down below until we told him to stop being such a dirtbag. After lots of people complained, our property management agency sent a letter around last week saying they had received legal and planning advice stating that short-term lets breached the house rules, several covenants of the head lease and most likely planning permission as well. They also made reference to residents’ right to live in peace and quiet in their own home, and that short-term lets could potentially impact the resale value of properties adjacent to those being used for AirBnB etc. Short term lets are now prohibited in our apartment block outright. There will only be more of these instances to come down the road. While AirBnB is great in principle, in practice you have a lot of unscrupulous landords who use it to get around planning regulations and use their property as a cash cow, as well as obnoxious guests who can make life miserable for everyone else. According to InsideAirBnB.com, there are 2827 apartments in Dublin being used for short-term lets, which seems completely wrong given that we have a housing crisis.
Sorry about formatting, my phone messed it up!
@Eric: If you typed all that on a phone you deserve a medal.
So what about people who live in their house and Airbnb it only occasionally… ?
What are the rules there?
If a person who is renting a house or apartment from a landlord sublets their place as an Air B&B to tourists,do they need permission from their landlord to do this? Also is the Landlord liable if the tourist had an accident on the premises? What type of insurance do they have in place for this? All these questions need to be addressed.
Yes you need landlords permission. Insurance can be bought for anything and standard accidental injury is generally covered. Likely need a newer police if always let on Airbnb.
@Abbi Cranky: The headline here seems more than a bit misleading. I heard a discussion about it on the radio just after 7 am. If you occasionally rent out a room in your primary residence – as per the spirit of airbnb, things will go on as before. This is primarily aimed at the huge number of entire properties which are continuously rented out as short lets. I’m sure the speaker found 3000 such properties in Dublin. But given the level of competence of the current government, God knows what’s in store
@Anne Marie Devlin: I think anyone using Air BnB should be very careful with the insurance cover they have. The insurance company could treat you as running it as business and void your cover if you make a claim. I know one guy who worked for an insurance company who gleefully told us how he managed to turn down a claim based on the fact that the owner of the house was storing some cushions for their shop in one of the rooms.
@Darren Byrne: excellent point, Insurance companies have people hired to contest claims and will look for any excuse not to pay out, so if your “guest ” trips and falls down the stairs and decides to sue you for your slippery steps you might find yourself in some serious trouble.
@Anne Marie Devlin: Misuse of Air B&B is rife and causing major problems in the rental market. Air B&B seem happy to ignore what is happening as are our government.
He does have a point. The last one I used was an apartment on bachelor’s walk at €125 mid week. He was booked 9 weeks in advance. That’s about 45,000/55,000 per year as his weekend rates are higher. Airbnb is now the go to option for a lot of second home owners as the income will be far more than renting it out on a permanent basis to the same person. It’s a huge income in some cases and it should be regulated and taxed.
It is taxed at the marginal rate. The government earn a packet from all airbnb income.
The council misses out on commercial rates. There should be 9% VAT applied. Then what profit the owner makes should also be taxed. The mortgage should not be a residential one and the owner should pay a higher rate. The unit may require planning.
The owner pays over 50% tax on all earnings. Airbnb report all earnings to revenue. Now you want planning and an additional 9%? You having a laugh?
Its like the gov woke up and started to do something!
Watch that evaporate very quickly when they realise that any laws they pass will also probably affect the property renting TD’s. Anyway it’s not like they we’re in too much of a hurry to sort it until some pee’d private citizens took it to court and forced their hand.
This whole area definitely needs stronger regulation. We had to leave our house because the landlord wanted to turn it in to an Airbnb. He was boasting about the money he was gonna make. In theory I have no problem with Airbnb but the way it’s being used now is ridiculous. You should only be able to let out the full property for 90 days of the year in my opinion. I think they have similar rules in Berlin so people can actually find somewhere to live. Over 3000 properties is a hell of a lot for a city the size of Dublin.
It’s quite obvious there is a balance required here. Renting your flat or a few rooms in your house occasionally should be exempt from all regulations and tax. A full time business is another matter.
PS A lot of the pressure here is coming from hotels and B&B’s and their organisations. Crony capitalism at its best.
William how do you feel about trades men doing cash jobs and not declaring it? Our bankers not paying tax on their bonuses?
It should be If its your main home and you got one or two spare rooms you can do what you like incl air bnb,
If it is your rental property or properties there is no law against short lets or holiday lets and air bnb should be classed the same and the same tax laws that apply to holiday / shorts lets should apply and the same as with insurance.
Regarding guest safety and payments etc… If you are weary book a traditional accommodation for peace of mind and security, leaving air bnb affordable option for people who don’t mind a little rough and ready.
That when you book via air bnb you agree or waiver that you have the relevant travel insurance to cover mishaps,
If the property is unfit air bnb will normal refund at present.
You buy a property you should be allowed to do what you like within reason, housing shortages is the planners and governments fault, using this as an excuse is a cop out for their failure.
Tourists bring so much money into our economy. They need somewhere to stay too.
How many potential tourists book cheap flights to Dublin, then to find out about the exorbitant hotel costs and decide not to come. Airbnb is great for our country and gives ordinary people a share of the tourism accommodation industry not just big hoteliers. It offers people more affordable accommodation around the world.
Our hotel prices are quite reasonable compared to other capital cities
Ridiculous. You should be allowed do what you like with a property as long as you meet all the rules and regs. Planning permission is just a joke.
@Trevor Weafer: In fact any such rules could be in violation of the constitutional right to own property. What does “own” mean if you can’t let it.
How is it far on people paying commercial rates for providing the same services?
@Trevor Weafer: I think the point of this is that they aren’t meeting the regulations. It’s just taken the authorities an age to wake up to the fact. If you think planning permission is a joke, can I move in next door to you and open up a nightclub?
It should be taxed. I wouldn’t go mad regulating it though as it does offer a real alternative to rip-off hotels and with record numbers expected again next year we need as much cheaper accommodation as possible, a lot of our visitors are from France, Germany and Holland they do not have the outlook the yanks have on spending massive money on Hotels and nothing anywhere else. They like to spend as little as possible on places to stay and spend when they get here.
Thats great but they need to sort out the hotel situation in Dublin too or this will start to hurt businesses that rely on tourism.
I know for a fact that there are a huge amount of people renting out their rented apartments to foreign tourists without the landlords knowledge. They are using this money to pay their 100eu.is a month rent for a two bedroom apartment. I suppose the landlord probably could know and turns a blind eye once he or she gets the rent,but the danger is if any of these unsuspecting tourists get injured on the premises what’s the comeback for them.None I suspect! It needs to be regulated properly because Air B&B are making commission out of this and have a responsibility and a duty of care. Still,the tourist’s who want to come here can’t get a hotel as there’s a huge shortage.the whole thing is a mess.
All above posts courtesy of the Irish Hotel Federation…..
Regulation is needed similar to New York and Berlin.
Regulation? You mean a ban :-D
Might be time the Government started using AIR BnB for their housing needs as supposedly cheaper than hotel rooms. We’d soon see a lot of people changing their tune on this if that happened.
I’m not overly familiar with how Air B&B works. If you are renting, do you get cash-in-hand or do the renters pay Air B&B and you have an “account”? How can the Government track and tax Air B&B income or does an owner
@Shakka1244: Whether you’re renting, or looking to stay somewhere, you have an account with AirBNB. All payments go through the website.
Airbnb hand over to the revenue details of all properties and monies earned. Owners are subsequently taxed at upto 55% on this income. It’s not such a cash cow as people think if the landlord is tax compliant.
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