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HOUSING CHARITY THRESHOLD has called for an NCT-style system for housing to ensure standards are met following an increase in calls about poor standards of accommodation.
Threshold today released its Quarter 3 Impact report for the months of July to September.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Threshold CEO John-Mark McCafferty said that 7% of overall queries in Q3 related to accommodation standards, up from 4.5% in the previous quarter.
“The one thing that spiked this time around was the increased amount of tenant queries related to poor standards of accommodation and they might be issues of dampness, inadequate ventilation or insulation, increased costs associated with heating people’s homes,” said McCafferty.
“It’s important because poor conditions can cause or exacerbate both physical and mental health problems. It’s important to say that renters do have rights in this area.”
There are a minimum set of legal standards associated with accommodation, but McCaffery said: “The reality is that because of the pressures in the private rented sector and because of the number of tenancies ending and the lack of alternative accommodation, many renters may feel that they can’t go to their landlords to raise issues about standards.
“They don’t want to create tension or conflict with their landlord at a time when so many tenancies are ending because landlords are selling the properties.”
Threshold’s proposed system would require a landlord to provide a certificate of fitness following an inspection of the property by a registered building professional or Local Authority inspector to the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) before renting their property.
Threshold adds that this would result in less renters living in substandard housing and reduce the number of cases regarding a breach in standards being brought to the RTB.
While local authorities can inspect rented accommodation, McCafferty said the “system right now isn’t working and we need, at the very least, an overhaul of the existing local authority inspection systems”.
He added: “There’s massive inconsistencies between local authorities regarding the inspection system and there’s difficulties in follow-up regarding the properties which fail inspections and a limited amount of properties that are actually inspected in the first place.
“So we need at the very least a consistent, statewide service in terms of either inspections or a self-certification system which we are espousing.”
When asked what the penalties would be for a property that failed the inspection, McCafferty said the system could “have a graduated grading element to it, or a system whereby you can only let if your property reaches the level and this can be phased”.
However, he noted that “we have to balance the fact that there’s an abject lack of supply and we don’t want a situation where we’re further undermining that supply”.
“We are very much conscious that with the pressure on accommodation right now, we have to find systems that both balance the incentives to remain in the market with the fact that this is a real issue that we found peaking over those three months,” said McCafferty.
“Renters are finding themselves in substandard accommodation, it’s having an impact on their physical and mental health, so we need to find a system that is much more consistent across the board that looks at the physical standards, as well as considering issues of supply.”
In its Q3 report, Threshold also said it supported over 900 households to stay in their homes or secure alternative housing, with 1,333 adults and 939 children supported.
Of the new households who contacted Threshold in Q3, 5,318 were at risk of losing their homes.
For the third consecutive quarter, most of these renters were at risk because their landlord wished to sell the home.
Overall, close to 9,000 households were supported by Threshold’s frontline advisors on wider issues regarding their tenancy.
More than half of the main queries in Q3 related to tenancy terminations, an increase from 38% in the same quarter last year.
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Housing crisis? Quick! We need more regulations! That’ll help!
The regulations that Darragh O’Brien proudly announced some time ago concerning the hoarding of lands with planning permission owned by developers would be subject to massive fines and penalties…Wonder why the Journal and the main media outlets failed to report that O’Brien and the government has dropped this measure…Again leaving developers off the hook like the did when it was the taxpayers who packed up the tab for the banks and developers..Landlords and developers, brown envelopes are a historical part of Darragh O’Brien’s FF.
@Donal Desmond: Politicans are ruining this country and they’re doing it on purpose. Treasonous slime the lot of them.
@Donal Desmond: I read about it at the weekend so it’s been reported.
@Tricia G: It was reported in the Indo…and swiftly disappeared…Seem to recall O’Brien giving a rousing speech concerning the abuse of developers hoarding lands…That was on RTE… Didn’t see him doing the U turn on RTE…After all it’s the forte of Martin and FF.
@Cormac Carroll: I own my home but i have to fix or pay for my leaky roof myself, replace my rubbish windows and doors.. so it’s not all upside mate.
@Cormac Carroll: The emphasis should be on “Enforcing some basic standards”.
Part of the regulations are simply unnecessary to have as a “must”.
E.g.: Why does the house need child safety locks on windows, when only adults are living there? Why is a fire blanket essential?
So people should think twice before taking out a 30 year, 400k loan to buy a big box of blocks. The solution is balance.. not either council house or buy your own. I say it all the time..there are smarter solutions to this problem that they have in more sophisticated countries than this.. but apparently if you point out the folly of everyone being expected to buy houses then you’re a freeloader.. let’s all join the circus and be clowns do.
@Wolfgang Bonow: Fireblanket is essential if cooker top stuff goes on fire as happened me..Child locks on windows are not…in my opinion
@Rose Sheridan: You can just use a damp towel. Or pay attention to that pot of oil you’ve got cookin…
@Donal Desmond: maybe it isn’t cost effective to build now. Everything to do with the building industry has doubled since before covid. Prior to this builders used to be able to build and sell but now all the roads, lightening, paths, trees etc has to be in place for the whole estate before building commences. Coupled with the fact that there’s a shortage of brick layers, carpenters, and electricians and other trade peoples in the country.
@Margret Walsh: It isn’t cost effective for private developers to build now, because everybody in the business demands a big slice of the pie. Precisely why we’ve been needing emergency action for years but only ever get more insane inflationary demand-led policies from FFG. Precisely why we need to change tack away from the model where we leave it in the hands of huge development companies whose sole priority is maximum profit. Kinda obvious one would think.. unless you’re a landlord having someone pay for another house.
@Margret Walsh: Point taken, but O’Brien made a point along with the opposition that developers were profiteering from the hording of land…That certainly has not changed…What has not changed is the government policy of faciliting the same developers who played a big part in the economic destruction of this country.
I’ve not commented on here before . The North has a system where the councils can inspect property and if its lacking facilities the council can set the rent . The landlord then has the choice of remedial work and receives full rent or accepts the reduced rent . Doesn’t matter who the tenant is its the house that the rent applies to. So even replacing the tenant wouldn’t affect the rent set. Seems to work well . The old guy i lived next door to pays £23 a week as hes no inside toilet just an outside one . Normal rent would be about 120 a week .
Maybe something similar would work better than a minimum standard. And might release some empty property for rent.
@Mitch Hendren: Sounds interesting, Mitch. Worth considering certainly. The unbridled expectation as you’ll learn here is for private landlords to make a killing with no responsibility at all. ‘My house, my rules’ they’ll say.. a rite of passage for those with notions of upward mobility with the blessings of FFG.
It’s been an eye opener moving to Mayo.
I love the county is quiet , but a lot of things we take for granted up there are different here . Like prepayment meters having an extra charge . Up there you get a discount for paying up front .
Also standing charges were abolished 20 years ago on electric and gas .
Medicines are different too . Lem sip here is just flavoured paracetamol. Up the north it contains a decongestant and cough suppressant.
Its little things no one would really notice . But you do as an outsider moving in .
Wouldn’t go back though !
@Mitch Hendren: Unfortunately what we have been subjected to has been a pretence of governance from our two main political parties for decades now. It’s apparent in every facet of life, more visible every day as the paint flakes off. Housing and health, the two first pillars of a decent society, are both in catastrophis state. Corruption and incompetence in every arm of the state.. but you’ll not hear too much about it on this article. These articles get the private landlords active in big numbers with their sense of entitlement and importance. The fact that we’ve become so reliant on private rentals is a scandal in itself. But these lot have been voting for it and milking it so they’ll not complain. Just look down their noses with delusions of superiority.
@Mitch Hendren: a reasonable suggestion Mitch but I’m not sure you’ve come to the right comments section for that. Try something a little more polarising and based off a broad generalisation – something along the lines of all landlords are greedy so and sos or all tenants are lazy layabouts.
@Mitch Hendren: What! Use common sense. Are you insane? We would need another Quango to run this badly
They are proposing to add some serious costs to landlords there. Much cheaper to investigate complaints and most importantly actually enforce penalties against nefarious landlords. The last bit is particularly poor right now
@Mick Duvanny: it’s almost like this private renting model isn’t working.
@: should it all be public?…..64% of social housing tenants are in arears and 110 m owed.yeah, public is a great model…..and the vast amount of public housing is torn a new one by tenants.
@John Terry: No, there’s a balance. We have nowhere near the right balance. You keep regurgitating the same nonsense about arrears.. those people are already catered for. Stop casting aspersions on decent, hard working people.
@: nonsense.those figures are facts,you obviously don’t like them.It’s why people are foaming at the mouth for the council to buy or build a gaff for them because there is no responsibility needed or bother to pay your measly rent.
@John Terry: Those are stats that you regurgitate from Corpo housing in places that you have been, but you’ve never provided any evidence for them. But that’s not even the point, you’re yet again demonstrating your limited mental capacity to see the suggestion as anything other than ‘the council buying or building you a gaff’. Like you have three pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and think you have the full picture. There are other options beyond your black and white but you are literally too thick to comprehend that.
@: they are the latest figures from the council website…look them up.you keep regurgitating the same nonsense replies…..Look at any council estate anywhere in the country and you will see it’s in bits.
@John Terry: And as if to remove any doubt, you prove that your ickle brain just can’t physically get past ‘council houses’. You truly are as thick as two planks.
@Mick Duvanny: they are only going to be adding costs to landlords who are renting subpar accommodation, if the houses are inspected yearly there would be no need for complaints, the money they will save on penalties can be spent on fixing failures during inspection, if their rental accommodation is above board there will be no extra cost to them
How’s it sposed to fit thru the door of the NCT centre
Another money making quango , country is a St Show, flooded with refugees , 5000 deportation orders and they can’t be removed still living of state.great little country it your not from here.
@BRENDAN O’CONNELL: tis the spot to go certainly won’t get anywhere as generous and ran arseways,even in a housing crisis we continue great country is right.
One standard for corporates and another standard for the ordinary man. Make it so difficult for the small landlord so that big corporations are the only game in town. And our politicians are doing what their masters and overlords innthe WEF etc demand through their well funded vassals in the NGO sector who actually run this country.
@Cormac Carroll: wow! with your Marxists credentials and your hate filled rant there who in their right mind would rent to a Malcontent like you.
@Margie Murphy: Another one proving why not anyone should be allowed rent property to the public. Small landlords deserve no help, sympathy or support. It’s a business venture for the conceited.
Commie
Housing catastrophe
@: And there are plenty that wreck their free gaffs and expect the council/taxpayer to fix it…..look at the vast number of social housing in this country.
@John Terry: That is true John. And there are a whole cohort of worthy people who do not, and who look after a place like it’s their own. But you carry on there with your dumbed down view of the world and supporting the current failed model.
@Cormac Carroll: You clearly aren’t paying a mortgage then….
We will end up with no rental properties on the market at all the way we’re going. Loads of welll paid un-fireable pen pushers ticking boxes at a leisurely pace but no actual housing. They’ve made it impossible to build with the amount of red tape they’ve made up to justify their jobs and supris3 suprise we havent got enough housing. The pen pushers are the problem, not the solution. Build. A home that isn’t absolutely perfect in every way is better than being homeless or spending 2k a month for a shoe box (if you’re lucky enough to get anywhere)
Look what happened to the market when they decided bedsits where no good
The photograph is a row of derelict houses.
@Tommy Haze: Full marks for observation and caption-reading.
@Tommy Haze: Correct. Well done, but it’s hardly a rorschach test or a magic eye picture.
@Tom Dillon:
The article is about rental properties.
@Tommy Haze: So many times I bend down and pull weeds from in front of shop fronts..reflects badly on renters in general..whether housing or retail rents.There is an attitude of “it’s not my problem” let someone else do it..
I don’ t get paid
Councils already do spot checking, not? But say if there is a fundamental prob with dampness (no surprise given the quality of buildings) then there is only one route: All tenants out and insulation workers in. Amounts to significant upgrade and landlord can ask for higher rent. Hope the charity considers all consequences. But this being Ireland they probably don’t.
@smatrix mantra: True..some houses and shops so damp/bad that they need to be knocked and rebuilt to truly solve the problem
As a landlord, I’m all in favour of this.
I’m also in favour of a proper credit and background checks on tenants, so lazy deadbeats can be weeded out in advance.
County Councils already have the authority to inspect properties that are rented and issue orders to fix issues but given the kips that are available to rent, it’s make much more sense for them to be inspected and approved before they go on market.
Those “inspections” won’t happen. They can’t even manage to inspect places of those who signed up for HAP. A few very significant houses will get inspected and probably fined but the majority gets away with it as there is not enough staff to do the job
@no no no: funny enough they only inspect HAP accommodation the working public can put up with it or so it seems.
@Margret Walsh: There are plenty of the hard working public in HAP accommodation as well Margaret. Too many of them, as a direct result of the failures of FF and FG to manage housing supply. What a horrible viewpoint.
What could go wrong here
@Jon Jon: more landlords pulling out of the market and a further increase in homelessness!!
Hahaha that’s a great way to drive even more landlords out of the market. It’s almost as if these people want to make the housing crisis worse.
Good.
The state of rental properties is actually really poor in Ireland. Its about time. For the prices they are charging they could at least put some decent furniture in properties. Most houses would be better off unfurnished. Lots of cheap furniture in properties. Beds, mattresses and sofas that should come with a health warnings. Never mind the horrible dated curtains, charity shops pictures on the walls.
Eh…. This already exists for HAP landlord properties. In fact, some months ago I suggested this very same phrase would be used Soo or later. I now prophecise that ‘All’ houses in the future will face same in relation to global warming issues.
To carry out the said Inspections would be a monumental task and an assumption that the personnel carrying out the said inspections would be qualified in the various disciplines from Fire Safety to General Condition. It would be more logical that the Applicant Landlord’s provide the relevant documentation to the various bodies and renter’s.
already have council inspection, my rental has been done twice.
had to have ber, electric safety cert etc etc
Can someone do an NCT on the house that I own and live.
It’s old and cold and damp.
I expect when it fails the NCT someone is going to pay to fix it as I don’t have the money.
Tenants and homeowners should be the same treatment..
have your say