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A HOUSING AND tenant advocacy charity has said that landlords are exploiting a gap in legislation in order to raise rents beyond legally allowed limits.
Threshold – which advocates for tenants in the private rental sector – said that it has seen an increase in the number of evictions as a result of landlords undertaking refurbishments on their properties.
At the launch of its pre-Budget submission today, the charity gave the results of a flash survey of people contacting its service over two weeks last month.
Over 100 clients contacted the charity in this period looking for assistance to do with tenancy terminations. Of these, 85% had to do with landlords attempting to evict tenants.
Over 40% of attempted evictions were because the landlord was selling the property, while just under 20% had to do with a landlord’s family members moving into the property.
A total of 12% of the attempted evictions had to do with landlords looking to evict tenants so that they could refurbish the property.
According to Tracy Murphy, a policy officer with the charity, there has been a significant increase in landlords doing this in recent months.
Threshold chairperson Aideen Hayden said today that this increase was due to landlords seeking a way around rent certainty legislation.
“Obviously… it’s a back door around the legislation,” said Hayden.
And it really does need a robust rebuttal and clarification.
Rent Pressure Zones
The government last year introduced rental caps laws for some areas around the country. Under the legislation, certain areas are designated as Rent Pressure Zones.
In these zones landlords are not allowed to raise the rent by more than 4% a year. As well as this, a new tenant in a property can only be charged 4% more than what a previous tenant was paying.
A clause in the Residential Tenancies Acts gives leave for landlords to raise rents above these limits when there is a “substantial change in the nature of the accommodation”.
However, Threshold said that landlords are abusing this clause by carrying out minor refurbishments on its properties, then jacking up the rents.
One of its pre-Budget proposals is to amend the Act so that it is explicitly stated that minor renovations cannot be used to get around the limits.
“We have to be very active and diligent in ensuring the law and the spirit of the law is abided by,” said Hayden.
Budget submission
Threshold also called for increased rental protections, a rise to the limits of the Housing Assistance Payment and Rent supplement payments and more tax incentives to protect smaller landlords.
As part of its submission, the organisation called on Government to:
Budget 2018 will be announced in October.
You can find Threshold’s full pre-Budget submission on their website
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Throw him into a cell and leave him there until after Christmas.
Give the culprit free legal aid , 3 meals a day in prison , free access to education , 1/3 off for remission that he doesn’t have to earn. Get the eejits that work to pay for it , & take a few euro off the pensioners & disabled to fund it .., god bless Fine Gael .. Soft on crime but tough on the law abiding citizen .
How can this be ok to do. A 70 year kid man attacked by 2 sc€mbags. They’ll both be laughing about this over Christmas while that man will never be ok to pick up people again. So on top of the assault and theft this poor guys livelihood is probably finished. These thugs will get free legal aid a slap on the wrist and set free to do it all again.
This country is gone to the dogs. They should make a public spectacle if people like this. They speak of human rights but what about that taxi drivers rights. Aghhhhhhh
Sickening
As a Taxi Driver in Tralee and some that represents all taxi drivers on the Taxi Advisory Committee I wish to condemn this attack on an innocent taxi driver out trying to make a living.
This taxi driver is no out of work for the Christmas and New Year.
I’m calling on the public to please respect Taxi Drivers during this busy period and if you do happen to see a driver in difficulty stop and help him/her.
Taxis in other countries are all fitted with Web cameras front and back of vehicle. It probably would have prevented this and at worst would have identified the coward who ran away.
Fit web cameras in all taxis, it will protect your drivers. This could have been spotted at Base but more than likely would not have happened because of fitted cameras.
Have them sweep the streets with a tooth brush
Castrate them..sure it does the dogs on the street good. Calms them down ten fold.
Typical cork behavior. Sean been buggered
Another man fascinated by Cork.
I should explain my comment lads. It was directed at Sean T Bugger, a cork native, who has a snide comment to make everytime anything happens on Dublin’s northside. No offense meant to anyone else.
Get a room then.
fantasti;c information with your journal my e mail address is danielgreydog@YAHOO.CO.UK LEFT GLANMIRE WHEN I WAS 20YROLD BUT STILL KEEP IN TOUCH WIT WHAT IS GOING ON IN CORK AM 78 NOW HAPPYY DAYS SPENT IN GLANMIRE
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