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DEPOSIT RETENTION BY landlords is to be tackled by government with the roll out of the long-awaited Deposit Protection Scheme.
The scheme will ensure there is a legal definition that a deposit will cover one month rent only. It’s understood this could also allow the Residential Tenancy Board (RTB) to retain deposits until both landlord and tenant agree it can be released.
Last year, the RTB received 4,837 new applications for dispute resolution, a 20% increase on 2015. One of the most common disputes is landlords refusing to return deposit payments.
It’s understood powers of the RTB in relation to deposit retention are to be enhanced, with the Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy due to announce a raft of reforms to help struggling renters next week.
Deposits
It’s common practice for landlords to request deposits of one month’s rent, which can be held back or a portion retained to cover any damage done to the property. However, in some cases, the money is never returned.
The law to introduce such a protection scheme was put forward in 2015, however, it has been delayed and a review of the scheme has been taking place over the last year.
Housing charity, Threshold, has long called for the introduction of a Deposit Protection Scheme, and included the measure in their latest budget submission.
“Deposit Protection Schemes are an effective, cheap and straightforward means of preventing homelessness. The retention of deposits and deposit disputes are a leading category of disputes referred to the RTB. The retention of a deposit, and the consequent inability to place a deposit on a new home, can be the first step towards homelessness,” it said.
Cap on deposit payments
In addition to deposit retention being tackled, government also aims to cap deposits at one month’s rent under new proposals to crack down on landlords demanding higher payments from renters looking to secure accommodation.
It’s becoming more frequent for landlords to demand two or three months rent upfront. This is causing serious difficulties for renters, said one government source.
Imposing restrictions on deposits would give some certainty to those looking to rent who are competing with people who have large deposits available to them.
Rent Pressure Zone
Murphy is also looking to further extend the Rental Pressure Zone (RPZ). Areas in Louth and Meath are expected to be included in the scheme, which only permits rents to rise by a maximum of 4% annually.
The measure already applies in Dublin and Cork city, as well as other localities such as Galway, Kildare, and Wicklow.
One of the well-flagged measures being considered by government is the re-introduction of bedsits. Murphy first hinted that the return of bedsits could be part of the government’s revised housing strategy back in July.
The proposal to lifting restrictions around the renting of bedsits remains under consideration, according to a spokesperson for the Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy, who added that possibility of allowing landlords rent out bedsits will be subject to new safety regulations and inspections.
A number of political parties, however, have said that it would be wrong to restore bedsits.
Labour’s Joe Costello said: “The bedsit is not a healthy option for accommodation and thousands of people were condemned to cramped, unsanitary conditions before their abolition in 2013.
Reintroduction of the bedsit will not resolve the housing crisis or even contribute to resolving it. But it will ensure that another generation of single and mainly elderly men and women will be condemned to a lifetime of poor quality, cramped accommodation.
Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin said it would be a “retrograde step”.
He said: “Anybody who claims that these bedsits will be subject to stringent inspections isn’t living in the real world. The reality is local authorities do not have the resources to conduct the inspections required due to funding cuts by central government.”
Landlords have given a cautious welcome to proposed government action which would allow the return of bedsit accommodation.
The Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) said that effectively banning bedsits up to now for “spurious reasons” had exacerbated the homelessness crisis.
Older persons charity Alone, however, said the reintroduction of bedsits would be a backward step for the housing market and would impact older people the most.
Bedsits are typically single-room properties in which the occupants share a bathroom with the occupants of another bedsit in the complex.
They were essentially banned in Ireland in 2013 by housing regulations which ruled out shared bathrooms.
In the midst of the housing crisis, however, the government is said to be considering allowing landlords to rent out bedsits, if the standards of these forms of accommodation are high.
Stephen Faughnan, chairman of the IPOA, said: “This is not a call for any type of substandard accommodation.
The banning of good quality, affordable accommodation because there was no integrated bathroom was a huge mistake. The damage already caused to the private rental market by this ill-thought action will now be impossible to reverse, but we can try to make up for it in some small way.
He said that hundreds of houses were sold because landlords were not able to comply with legislation banning the bedsits and adapt them to alternative forms of accommodation.
Alone said that it campaigned for the abolition of bedsits for years, and would consider their return a backwards step.
Its CEO Sean Moynihan said: “In a time of extremely high rents, the government is rewarding landlords who have taken no actions to improve housing standards.
Older people on fixed incomes cannot compete in the current rental sector and we would be concerned that it will be our older people who end up in living in these tiny bedsits.
With reporting from Sean Murray
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One unintended consequence of Brexit is that dozens of English news stories keep wandering across the pond.
That, or there’s a Journal.co.uk and I’ve accidentally found my way onto it…
@jamesdecay:
and accurate reporting would help.
“In his interview with BBC Radio 4 following his nomination, Moore spoke of his support for Brexit…”
That should be Boycott, unless Moore has since become a man and took over from Boycott in the interview.
@The Quare Fella: I’m going to give the UK Journal some leeway. They must be terribly overworked and understaffed…
It happened 21 years ago, he was punished by the courts. Move on..
@Paul O’Sullivan: yes move on…. and don’t honour the man with a knighthood… leave him in the shadows where he belongs
@Paul O’Sullivan: eh, the reason for his knighthood is also quite a long time ago. Even further back actually. Makes your argument a bit redundant.
@Dave O’Keeffe: I couldn’t give a flying f#£k if he got a knighthood. My argument is a third party interfering in a man’s life
@Paul O’Sullivan: as a 3rd party if very much sounds like he interfered in his victims life
@Paul O’Sullivan: You didn’t think this all the way through huh? Shocker.
“…Boycott pinned Moore down in a hotel room and punched her in the face 20 times before checking out and leaving her to pay the bill.”
@Smidgen Dublin: horrific
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: It would be if it were true. It’s difficult to prove you’re innocent when you’ve someone trying to blackmail you.
I give him the benefit of the doubt.
@bopter: I give her the benefit of the doubt based on the photos of her injuries produced in court evidence.
@bopter: He was convicted in a French court of law. And the excuse that in France you are guilty until proven innocent is both feeble and untrue; they also have the presumption of innocence. The only proof of her alleged blackmail is him whinging about it while calling a female BBC interviewer ‘love’.
@Smidgen Dublin: That was Moore’s testimony which Boycott has always refuted.
It’s a fact that this woman was in severe financial difficulties at the time and Boycott alleged that she was trying to blackmail him for £1 million.
Apart from this incident Boycott has no history of violence or abuse whatsoever. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent but the violence described in this case would point to a man incapable of holding his temper.
Finally, the French justice system is weighted in favour of the alleged victim. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply under the Napoleonic code (as far as I’m aware, that could have changed over time).
@Will: Scratch that last bit, a common misconception apparently that would be superseded by the UN declaration on Human Rights anyway.
@Will: What’s ails you? I feel sorry for you. You can’t beat a woman. Ever.
@Smidgen Dublin: Really, ever? You see a women beating your child you do nothing? A woman is beating your elderly parent? Your wife? A gang of women beating a man to death? Any defenseless being being beaten by a woman? The Woman is 6ft and 21 stone and man 5ft2 and 10 stone and she is beating him he should just take it?
@Craic_a_tower: What’s wrong with you? Why is meeting violence with violence the only resolution you see here?
@Will: I guess Will is a woman beater going by his defense of this guy.
@Craic_a_tower: you sure have a lot of fantasies about beating woman.
@Smidgen Dublin: Why are you exaggerating and suggesting women are always weak and physical intervention should never happen. If you saw a man beating a women would you not physically intervene? Are you saying you would just politely ask him to stop? I never said anything about being violent I asked you what you would do and you didn’t answer
@Craic_a_tower: I suggested nothing of the sort about women. No-one has to answer you.
@Smidgen Dublin: Well you said no man should beat a women ever why? Regardless of gender physically intervention may be required. If you don’t want to answer then don’t answer at all. Nice to have an opinion if you never have to explain it but state to everybody else.
@Craic_a_tower: Yes it is. Thank you.
Beats me why anyone deserves a Knighthood for playing Cricket. Also Theresa May might have been better to err on the side of caution and leave him out. Just make him another tin of buns Theresa.
@Aine O Connor: Chocolate Brownies to be precise.
@Aine O Connor: who, he beats you?
@Aine O Connor: You don’t think Sir Richard Hadlee deserved a knighthood?!
Two lovely black eyes
O what a surprise
Only for telling a man he was wrong
Two lovely black eyes
Song by charles coburn
1910
Puts the ‘false accusations ruin lives’ shite into perspective when you see that even a conviction doesn’t do anything to this pr**k.
Everyone, let’s boycott boycott!!!
On the one hand, he punched a woman in the face twenty times. But on the other hand, he ran up and down on a cricket field a lot. So, you know, two sides.
And I genuinely thought that stuff like domestic abuse is a requirement for knighthood.
have your say