Landlord ordered to pay €40,000 for discriminating against HAP tenants

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tenants-win-40-000-from-landlord-ffhpqxpdl

A landlord has been ordered to pay more than €40,000 in compensation to three “model tenants” after discriminating against them because they received housing assistance payments (HAP).


The scope of the Equal Status Acts, which prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods and services, was expanded from January last year to stop landlords from refusing to accept a tenant who claims benefits from the state.


Three cases were brought against the same landlord before the Workplace Relations Commission and heard together. The landlord claimed they were not obliged to accept HAP as the new law did not apply to existing tenants.
 
This situation for landlords is becoming ridiculous. You can't even decide who you do or don't rent too now. Expect more landlords to sell up as soon as they can.

The Govt are about to reap what they sow. Expect even more pressure on the rental market and housing crisis.
 
Thats not a reason to get out of the business, The LL was wrong to do what he did, if fact Id go so far as to say, its that type of carry-on which gives all LLs a bad name.
 
LS400 said:
Thats not a reason to get out of the business, The LL was wrong to do what he did, if fact Id go so far as to say, its that type of carry-on which gives all LLs a bad name.
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Lets look at this from a commercial perspective (ie as the landlord). The requirements for the HAP are higher than the Housing Regulations in force when the property was built. it should be noted that the majority of the housing stock in Ireland privately owned and live in as peoples principle private residence do not meet the HAP requirements yet people are living in them with no problems. The landlord is required to upgrade the property to meet HAP requirements but is not allowed increase rent if property is in RPZ greater than the 4%.

So now you have the situation where the landlord either does not want or can't afford to carry out the improvements. The property no doubt is habitable and of a reasonable standard ( I will however stand corrected on this but assume the properties are for the purpose of this discussion).

The landlord is now fined for making a commercial decision (ie he did not want to invest funds in the upgrade). if we had a functioning market the tenant would have said right I am going to rent somewhere else. We don't have a functioning market for those who require subsidized accommodation (failure by the Govt) so what happens, the landlord is penalized.

Why not come to a consensus and lower the HAP requirements until supply comes on board. Also the HAP scheme needs to be changed to take all the risk away from the Landlord. The HAP scheme states that if the tenant stops making payment of their contribution to the Local Authority then the Local Authority ceases to pay the Landlord.
 
I'd disagree regarding the minimum standards; I think they are relatively easily met.
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/e...intenance_and_minimum_physical_standards.html

The question for me is that the HAP payment rate is considerably lower (in my area at any rate) than the market rent - even with the rent controls in place.

So is it now the case that Landlords are expected to reduce the rent to the HAP payment level?

And I agree, the payment system is quite daft and offers no security.
 
Hi Thirsty

I have a property rented via the RAS and was required to install vents in each bedroom for ventilation purposes. These bedrooms had large windows with multiple windows which could be opened. The council inspector wanted me to paint the house from top to bottom despite the fact the house had just been painted.

I would have no problem living in the property myself if I had to but yet the council inspector insisted on the vents. While I agreed to the vents I drew the line at the painting (since the property has just been repainted from top to bottom).

While the Citizen's Information board may provide a list of the requirements in practice the inspectors want more which is one of the reason's why there is a reluctance to take HAP recipient's. It is not the only one but it does not help.
 
They would probably blacklist your property from rental privately and if you did rent it privately and they became aware I suspect you would be fined.
 
as a full time landlord, I've no doubt that landlords are exiting the marketing (most of my tenant calls are from people in houses which they can prove are currently for sale) - however, I can't seem to find the latest data on the RTB site on the numbers of active landlords? They used to publish it in each quarterly report, but appear to have stopped.
The data for 2013 'at a glance' on RTB was 156k (300k registered tenancies) and it rose to around 170k later I read somewhere (due mainly to the 20-25k letters sent to unregistered landlords), but I can't see anything for 2016, or anything in the quarterly reports for Q1 and Q2 this year, bar that there are currently 330k registered tenancies, but again that doesn't really explain if there are more landlords in the country or not, or just more unregistered landlords that are now legitimised.

also, FYI - I track the number of properties to rent on daft each week and this weekend it dropped to a record low of 3,000 for the first time. There were 23k in 2012
 
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Landlords need to be very careful. If they wish to discriminate against HAP tenants (which I believe they should have the right to do), they need to find and document other grounds for choosing a non-HAP tenant.
 
Landlords are indeed exiting the market. The majority of increases in registered tenancies I suspect are the REIT's. While most of the properties of the REITS are relatively new builds they meet the current regulations. Wait and see what happens when the Govt try take on the REITS in relation to future HAP changes.

The Govt can take on the small landlords because we are all individuals which is why we need an association which will support the landlords. The tenants have the Govt, the Local Authorities, Threshold etc.
 
LS400 said:
Thats not a reason to get out of the business, The LL was wrong to do what he did, if fact Id go so far as to say, its that type of carry-on which gives all LLs a bad name.
Click to expand...

Why do you think the landlord was wrong. It seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing not to want to accept payment from a 3rd party with no guarantees.
 
As a landlord I am happy to accept tenant in receipt of HAP, if they are able to pay the advertised rent. However any potential tenant I have encountered in receipt of HAP has been unable to produce a deposit on the day of viewing.
 
40,000 Euros says he is wrong. I agree the system and hoops you are made to jump through are a joke, but it wasn't the fault of the tenants. They didnt ask to be put into the position they found themselves in, yet they were the ones who were going to be punished, not the legislators of the act.
 
Its also unfortunate, that situations like this make you need/want to circumnavigate the rules so as not to be out done by events outside of your control.
 
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