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Updated 4.08 pm
HOUSING MINISTER EOGHAN Murphy says the government will look at taking on landlords who are trying to get around rules regulating rent increases.
Murphy made the pledge after it was announced that two more areas are to become subject to rent controls, Drogheda and Greystones
The areas will now be designated as Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), meaning that rents cannot rise by more than 4% annually there.
To qualify as a RPZ, the rents in an area must be above the national average and have gone up 7% or more in four of the last six quarters.
There are now a total of 21 RPZs across the country.
All of Dublin, as well as parts of Wicklow, Cork, Kildare and Galway have been designated RPZs already.
The two new additions to the list were announced today by the minister at the launch of the latest Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) quarterly rent index report.
But speaking from the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Murphy said that some landlords may be seeking to “get around” the rules by carrying out refurbishment works on properties.
“Anecdotal evidence, which seems to be borne out by some of the data returns, is that the RPZ legislation is not being complied with by some landlords, who are looking to get around the increase limits imposed, for example, by using the refurbishment exemption to charge higher rents or reset the market rent,” the minister said.
I am instructing my department and the RTB to formulate a definition of what constitutes “substantial refurbishment” of a dwelling that will issue from the RTB as guidance. This clarification will be communicated to landlords in the coming weeks by the RTB as part of their wider awareness campaigns on the RPZ measures.
“I expect this definition to be approved by the RTB Board and published by the end of the month,” the minister added.
Murphy also said that such a definition may ultimately be added to legislation to give it further legal backing.
He said substantial refurbishment should “clearly improve the quality of the accommodation” and could include improvements such as increasing the number o bedrooms or improving energy usage through improved insulation.
Rents
The report found that rents in Dublin are now 10% higher than they were during the peak of the rental boom at the height of the Celtic Tiger.
The report for the second quarter of this year (Q2) found that rents in the capital are 10.8% above their previous peak in the last quarter of 2007.
Nationally, the average rent across all properties in Q2 stood at €1,017 – which is €63 higher than the same period last year.
This marks a rise of 6.6% nationally in private sector rents across the country.
The RTB’s quarterly rent index reports measure the rents on all newly registered tenancies in the quarter. The RTB says that it is the most authoritative report on rents in the country as it measures actual rents being paid by new tenants (as opposed to asking prices).
Over 19,000 new tenancies were registered with the RTB during Q2 of this year.
- With reporting by Rónán Duffy
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I pay for Spotify, use it all the time in work. My phone has much more free space that would normally be full of music. No need for a harddrive full of music either. Youtube is grand for listening to music with a desktop, but not from a phone, doesn’t play in the background. Spotify also works with Last.fm which is nice.
i love spotify. its a convenient legal way to listen to a vast array of music online with ads every now and then and playlists. this announcement of a free mobile service makes it even better. i never paid for spotify i just listen to the few ads as its a small price to pay.
“Spotify has agreed licensing deals with Sony, Universal and Warner to use their music”
Their music. It belongs to the artists, dammit!
It actually doesn’t, it belongs to the labels. That’s how it works unfortunately.
I’m a great fan of spotify and the price of €9.99 per month is well worth it. There is a huge choice with every taste catered for. Great new playlists are appearing all the time or you can create your own. Once you are signed up you can store up to 3,000 songs to play off line which is great if you only use an ipad and you can then play them back in the car or wherever you are. Great for long journeys. The service is being improved all the time.
3333 songs :-)
Downloading remains superior, and free.
Plus there’s always youtube…
Youtube doesn’t get me TV shows and Movies before they even come out in Ireland. ;)
This is only to take on itube, by far the best, but wont work if there’s only limited tracks available
Straight up downloading doesn’t introduce you to new music and play lists you would never discover otherwise. Spotify is a very good service and if you’d rather steal from artists and record labels than support them then I feel sorry for you.
Why would I bother paying for spotify when I can use muzu.tv or tunein radio? ¿
Most songs are on YouTube anyway including some nice remixes which are hard to find elsewhere
Download iTube, it’s free, always up to date, saves playlists and has genre generated playlists all without taking up memory. Unbelievable app.
Thanks for that! Just downloaded it there! Always found it so annoying that YouTube won’t stay on in the background!
Great call Rory. Never heard of it before now. Nice one!!
Torrent
I prefer Google music myself..
Apple iTunes Radio will be available in Ireland soon for iPhones, which is essentially a better free version of spotify
iTunes Radio will only be free with ads after every song. The paid version will only be €24.99 a year though, which includes your iTunes Match service which I use heavily to. Means being able to stream your entire iTunes library. And a hell of a lot cheaper than spotify or google play
I still prefer Spotify as I can choose what I want to listen to. iTunes Radio is just that…a radio station.
I havnt bought much from iTunes so Match is no good to me.
I’ll be sticking with Spotify:-)
I’ve never bought anything iTunes but use Match and it’s great. It scans your library of dodgy downloads and matches to iTunes library allowing you to stream or download high quality tracks. It’s a great service and great value.
Means I then have my home collection in phone, work computer etc.
I have an ap called Anyplay. It’s essentially a free spotify. It’s by far my most used ap. It’s no longer available in the App Store but I have it saved onto my PC if anyone wants it ;)
I use Deezer which is free with my contract similar to spotify have it playing constantly
This has always been the way with spotify since the company began. New to Ireland maybe but not exactly headline news.
Anyone know what the limited amount will be? No mention above and the WSJ article is subscription only.
You can listen to approx. 100 songs per month with advertising in between. The way to avoid the ads is to set up a playlist and then there’s no breaks. In Sweden at least, they might introduce something different to Ireland but can’t see it happening. Have had an account since they started.
Try the itube app free in App Store uses cache downloading
So once watched it’s saved
Full music videos
have your say