90% of Cork HAP inspections fail

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triggs

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Refering to an English housing survey 2021, 23% in the private rented sector did not meet "decent home standard...".
www.irishexaminer.com

More than 90% of Cork city's Hap properties fail inspections

One councillor said he has noticed that when properties fail on a serious issue, some landlords used it as an excuse to serve a notice to quit on their tenants to facilitate the property upgrades
www.irishexaminer.com www.irishexaminer.com
I post the link above as a recent example of HAP inspection findings in Cork.
Briefly, it states that there was a 92% failure rate (of 3018 inspected properties) from last quarter 2021 to June 2022.
For me, this begs a number of questions;
1. Are the standards applied excessively high?
2. Are those who legislate and police the standards confident that their own properties would pass one such initial HAP inspection?
3. Is the supply of rental accommodation being squeezed by the onerous standards imposed by HAP inspection?
4. Is HAP inspection just another QUANGO?
5. Is there consistency amongst the various contractors engaged by the county council's in their application of the standards?
6. How many of us, with hand on heart would be confident of passing a HAP inspection on a first visit?
 
triggs said:
Refering to an English housing survey 2021, 23% in the private rented sector did not meet "decent home standard...".
www.irishexaminer.com

More than 90% of Cork city's Hap properties fail inspections

One councillor said he has noticed that when properties fail on a serious issue, some landlords used it as an excuse to serve a notice to quit on their tenants to facilitate the property upgrades
www.irishexaminer.com www.irishexaminer.com
I post the link above as a recent example of HAP inspection findings in Cork.
Briefly, it states that there was a 92% failure rate (of 3018 inspected properties) from last quarter 2021 to June 2022.
For me, this begs a number of questions;
1. Are the standards applied excessively high?
2. Are those who legislate and police the standards confident that their own properties would pass one such initial HAP inspection?
3. Is the supply of rental accommodation being squeezed by the onerous standards imposed by HAP inspection?
4. Is HAP inspection just another QUANGO?
5. Is there consistency amongst the various contractors engaged by the county council's in their application of the standards?
6. How many of us, with hand on heart would be confident of passing a HAP inspection on a first visit?
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Another question to add to your list:
7: Would all privately occupied homes pass this test?
 
The minimum standards for rental accommodation are set in law. They demand higher standards than owner occupiers are allowed to live in. If they demand up to date standards compliance for issues like ventilation that exceed what was in place at the time of construction, I think it's reasonable to expect landlords will take these off the market, or at least from the HAP scheme.

The inspectors can be pretty black and white in their interpretations and it may be difficult to impossible to comply in all cases. I saw one report which demanded increased ventilation in an apartment where the landlord had no possibility of complying.

In the case of a friend, they cited a 1940's ex-corpo house in D12 for not having fixed vents in the walls. Anyone familiar with these homes know that they are anything but airtight, and the challenge is reducing air leakage rather than increasing it, but they were insistent, and so I drilled 5" cores in the bedroom and living room walls to accommodate permanent vents. No fun in old cast concrete! Last I heard the tenant had them stuffed and taped over.

Overall I think they are good, fitting of window restrictions, fire alarms and blankets aren't a bad thing. Perhaps though some variance should be afforded to older properties or those in managed developments where the landlord has limited powers to make changes.
 
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BoscoTalking said:
? Will this lead to dereliction - Can't / Won't to sell it for a variety of reasons, too expensive and risky to rent it, "sure lookit"
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Very unlikely, there would be no sense in letting an otherwise fine property go to dereliction over a minor issue. Worst case, sell the property to an owner occupier or a landlord who will weed out potential HAP candidates during the vetting process.
 
triggs said:
1. Are the standards applied excessively high?
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That's a matter of opinion.

But for example in Ireland landlords are legally obliged to put in place a microwave for a tenant. As I understand it a mere lack of a microwave would result in a fail.
 
ClubMan said:
Just curious, where is that set out in law?
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Here.

(2) Subject to paragraph (1), there shall be provided, within the same habit- able area of the house, for the exclusive use of the house:
(a) 4 ring hob with oven and grill,
(b) Suitable facilities for the effective and safe removal of fumes to the external air by means of a cooker hood or extractor fan,
(c) Fridge and freezer or fridge-freezer,
(d) Microwave oven
 
Had a Co.Co. inspector check a house of mine rented under RAS scheme. The report came back to me stating that Smoke Alarms, Heat detector, Carbon Alarms, were all out of date and he failed it. Factual situation was that all were in date and would be in date for years to come . It was a totally false report and I wrote back questioning his integrity and recommending he get a report from Specsavers for me. I challenged him to call to the house with me present to point out the alleged issues. The only thing I heard was that the House was deemed passed from another council official.
 
Dermot said:
Had a Co.Co. inspector check a house of mine rented under RAS scheme. The report came back to me stating that Smoke Alarms, Heat detector, Carbon Alarms, were all out of date and he failed it. Factual situation was that all were in date and would be in date for years to come . It was a totally false report and I wrote back questioning his integrity and recommending he get a report from Specsavers for me. I challenged him to call to the house with me present to point out the alleged issues. The only thing I heard was that the House was deemed passed from another council official.
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Had a similar experience and I have had the same tenant for 14 yrs now and moved from one property to another that I owned and the inspector said if the tenant wanted the property painted he could get it done via the report even though it has just been completed repainted a couple of months before the inspection. My tenant actually convinced the inspector to remove it from the report.

I had a second inspection with similar experience. They either can't or don't want to use common sense. To echo what another poster has mentioned most owner occupiers homes don't meet the requirements set out in the reports.
 
Have dealt with them over the years, utterly ridiculous demands, on one occasion demanded additional air Vent be put in despite there being two already. Wanted a large fridge freezer despite there being no room in the galley kitchen for it. Child restrictors on ground floor property, a washing/ dryer machine despite the fact they are useless.
 
The standard set down in law is high so it is not surprising there are failures. However the main reasons in Cork were smoke alarms, fire blankets, boiler servicing, and proper ventilation. All fire safety related. You can understand why the council don’t want the tenants in fire traps.

It does not seem that the tickboxes are very black and white - no minor/major issues.

I know my house would fail because we have no mechanical ventilation in the bathroom. But then again I have a window so it is suited to my needs.
 
Clamball said "I know my house would fail because we have no mechanical ventilation in the bathroom. But then again I have a window so it is suited to my needs."

What the regulations say and I am relying on memory " A well ventilated bathroom" I do not remember the regulations stating specifically "mechanical ventilation". Open to correction.
 
One of my rentals failed because I had no carbon monoxide detector. ( the tenant had thrown it out when it was beeping because the battery was low) Also the house had a charcoal extractor fan over the cooker. It must be vented to an outside wall. It cost me 500euro to get it vented from the centre of the house to outside wall. My own house has a charcoal one, and it works fine.
 
Dermot said:
Clamball said "I know my house would fail because we have no mechanical ventilation in the bathroom. But then again I have a window so it is suited to my needs."

What the regulations say and I am relying on memory " A well ventilated bathroom" I do not remember the regulations stating specifically "mechanical ventilation". Open to correction.
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Might be that mechanical ventilation is needed for a "land locked" bathroom with no window (or with only a Velux style roof window?)? My house has such a bathroom but no mechanical ventilation which surprised me. But maybe things were different in 1995 when it was built?
 
ClubMan said:
Might be that mechanical ventilation is needed for a "land locked" bathroom with no window (or with only a Velux style roof window?)? My house has such a bathroom but no mechanical ventilation which surprised me. But maybe things were different in 1995 when it was built?
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Yeah, mechanical extraction would be required in the event of no windows, or if the windows didn't meet the minimum requirements. If the window opens 30+ degrees, the opening area of the window must be a minimum of 5% of the total floor area of the room. If it only opens 10-30 degrees the opening must be 10% or more of the floor area.
 
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