Illegal to use local handyman to do letting management?

amethyst

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I have a small number of properties in a provincial city and I need to have them managed for rental.

I'd prefer to use Sean, a dependable, local handyman I know who can use the employment, and who will do a good job. But it seems that new regulations are getting in the way. See:

[broken link removed]

It seems you now need to get a license to give the kind of property services I need from Sean. The application fee is over 1000 Euro, there are educational requirements, there is a yearly insurance requirements. This is all prohibitive for Sean. There are heavy fines for operating without a license.

A few questions come up.

The first question is whether that law is being enforced; are there landlords here going ahead and doing things the old-fashioned way without problems?

Second question is, has there been any debate about this that anyone knows of? We're all sympathetic when the small guy gets locked out by competition when the corporates come to town, but needlessly locking them out by regulation? I wouldn't be surprised if the 'big guys' in property management lobbied for this change. Can't landlords judge the competence of individual operators themselves? Will we need licensed lawn-mowers next? The downside of the nanny state.
 
This is another example of over-regulation.

It appears that Seán would need two licenses.

The licence held by an Independent Contractor or a Sole Trader is held
both by the business and by the licensee personally. Consequently, two licences, one for the business and one for the individual, will be issued on foot of the one application. However, each Employee of a Sole Trader, who provides property services, must also be licensed.

What do you want him to do?

1) Maintaing the property would not be a licensed activity. He can continue to do that.

2) Collecting rent would be. However, I presume that most of the tenants would be paying you directly into your bank account.

3) Finding new tenants would be. Are you happy to give him the authority to do this?

The purpose of the Act presumably is to stop cowboys or at least to regulate them a bit. Theoretically, if someone moves to the UK and asks their brother to let and manage their house in Ireland, the brother would have to register. In practice, I doubt if anyone would take any action.

I don't think that there would be a problem in the ordinary course of events. However, if there is a dispute with a tenant which goes to the PRTB , they might ask if Seán is regulated.

Brendan
 
Hi Brendan,

yes, ideally I'd like him to do the lot -- collect rent, find tenants and so on.

You mentioned that the thinking is that this is a way to keep the 'cowboys' out. The problem is that the solution (i) won't keep the cowboys out and (ii) will keep perfectly good people out.

It's disgusting. These regulation busy-bodies!! The stupidity of requiring 'higher education' and a mound of paperwork and certification and fees to get in the way of a perfectly good economic activity.

Sean and his kind are now 'laid off' by stupid and unnecessary government rules, while the government will spend mounds of our tax money on employment schemes for him.

When I say people will need to be licensed and certified for mowing your lawn, I'm serious. You'll need two years of college for mowing lawns eventually, yearly certification and mandatory liability insurance, with continuing-education requirements to keep certification up-to-date.

But you won't be allowed to cut the hedges with that license. That will be a whole separate license.

If that seems absurd---how absurd is it that a person needs post-secondary education, certification, license and yearly insurance to collect your rent? (OK that's my rant for the day.)
 
I The first question is whether that law is being enforced; are there landlords here going ahead and doing things the old-fashioned way without problems?

.

You really want to know the answer, nothing has changed for landlords, there is no way my agents of many many years would be able to comply with this nonsense. One of them doesn't even have the leaving certificate, which is now a requirment etc. And you know what, he does a very good job competently, professionally and honestly.
 
I've said on a number of occasions that this country's regulatory infrastructure more and more resembles 1980s East Germany. When are people going to shout stop?
 
I've said on a number of occasions that this country's regulatory infrastructure more and more resembles 1980s East Germany. When are people going to shout stop?

Stop !

And if you have the time and energy to organise something more effective, I would be glad to hear about it.
 
You really want to know the answer, nothing has changed for landlords, there is no way my agents of many many years would be able to comply with this nonsense. One of them doesn't even have the leaving certificate, which is now a requirment etc. And you know what, he does a very good job competently, professionally and honestly.

I thought there was an exemption for people who have been in the role of property agent for several years?
 
>> I thought there was an exemption for people who have been in the role of property agent for several years?

There is no exemption from the requirement to get a license. In getting the license, people with years of experience can be exempted from certain educational requirements, that's all.

Observe that this does nothing at all for people who try to enter the business AFTER the laws were passed.
 
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