"No rent allowance tenants" now illegal

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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RTE reports:

"The Irish Human Rights Commission has begun a campaign warning landlords they can no longer discriminate against prospective tenants on the basis of being in receipt of housing assistance or rent supplement

Landlords will be in breach of equality legislation if they include the words "no rent allowance accepted" in letting adverts.

Prospective tenants who are discriminated against can take a case to the Workplace Relations Commission which can make a maximum award of €15,000"

Who would want to be a landlord?

Now if a rent allowance tenant turns up at your viewing, you are going to have to be very careful. If you take on another tenant instead, you face the risk of a case against you. It will cost the tenant nothing to take the case. So it's a shot to nothing for them. They might get €15,000, they won't lose anything. You might lose €15,000 and you won't win anything.

Brendan
 
The WRC? Sounds like an odd body to involve. There is no employer-employee relationship here.
 
You'll see a lot of landlords asking for 3 month's deposit and a month's rent in advance.
 
No doubt like the insurance scammers, they will be no shortage of takers trying to get their hands on this generous €15000, should be easy money. Tough being a landlord these days. Its no wonder so many selling up.
 
Maybe I am missing something here, but it appears to me that all this really means is that landlords cannot advertise and exclude Rent Allowance recipients.

We know that Rent Allowance rates are lower (in general) then asking rents. All landlords have to do now is make sure that this remains the case, I mean if someones rent allowance is lower then the asking rent and the landlord refuses to let the property to them, then the reason cannot be because the person is in receipt of RA, clearly the reason is that they cannot pay the asking rent.

As I said, maybe I am missing something?
 
ppmeath said:
Maybe I am missing something here, but it appears to me that all this really means is that landlords cannot advertise and exclude Rent Allowance recipients.
We know that Rent Allowance rates are lower (in general) then asking rents. All landlords have to do now is make sure that this remains the case, I mean if someones rent allowance is lower then the asking rent and the landlord refuses to let the property to them, then the reason cannot be because the person is in receipt of RA, clearly the reason is that they cannot pay the asking rent. As I said, maybe I am missing something?
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I was thinking exactly along the same lines... could this be another reason why rents are going up in that sector of the market???
 
moneybox said:
No doubt like the insurance scammers, they will be no shortage of takers trying to get their hands on this generous €15000, should be easy money. Tough being a landlord these days. Its no wonder so many selling up.
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The County and City Councils came to the same conclusion a few years ago...
 
odyssey06 said:
I was thinking exactly along the same lines... could this be another reason why rents are going up in that sector of the market???
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I wouldn't have thought so to be honest, they were already up, you have private renters out there competing for limited accommodation, they have their own money so are not restricted by RA rates (although clearly restricted by income).
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Who would want to be a landlord?

Now if a rent allowance tenant turns up at your viewing, you are going to have to be very careful. If you take on another tenant instead, you face the risk of a case against you.
Click to expand...


Speaking as a landlord this will have no effect on any ad I put on daft as I've never written no rent allowance on those ads.

I wonder will landlords still be allowed to say professionals only, (code for workers) and no students I assume is still ok.

So how to avoid social welfare tenants, now this is really tricky. First step, rent is to be above the social welfare ceiling, then they aren't entitled to social welfare. This cuts out every single social welfare tenant in Dublin, Cork and Galway and probably the other metrapolisis as well, ie where most social welfare tenants are.

Second step is ye old where do you work question.

Third step, already alluded to, is a very large deposit, because anyone in this business knows that most social welfare tenants will find it impossible to get a large deposit. And then the rent up front generally will deal the killer blow.

Now we will see both tenants and landlords wasting their time vetting each other. Expect long viewings folks.

It's quite easy to weed out social welfare tenants. If the government had wanted a proper solution they should have raised the ceilings, this is just a sticking plaster knee jerk nonsense solution from that nincompook Kelly.

In case anyone is wondering, I have social welfare tenants. Some of them are currently applying to the city council for above the social housing ceiling as I've decided to increase the rents. My first time ever. If it doesn't work out I won't actually increase the rent as I just wouldn't feel good about that. The tenants if they get it are going to be given a gift of two free weeks rent, that helps to incentivise them to go throught the ardous paperwork trail of following this up. So far I've suceeded with one tenant last month.

If the government were serious, then someone like me would be willing to purchase a property and do it up to a high standard and supply extra accommodation in currently empty delelict properties. Sadly the government doesn't care and us landlords are just the worst of the worst.
 
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Bronte said:
Second step is ye old where do you work question.
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I would imagine that would be the equivalent of asking a woman at an interview "How many children do you have?".

You are opening yourself wide open to a case for discrimination.

Brendan
 
Does the new rule mean you cannot ask someone how they are able to pay the rent. The answer to that is I work at Specsavers. Are you not allowed ask them are they a social welfare tenant.

This is just a new game of questions. What will happen is that workers will now come with their payslips without being asked or equivelent and say 'here landlord, look I'm not social welfare'

Do you honestly think this will change anything.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
RTE reports:

"The Irish Human Rights Commission has begun a campaign warning landlords they can no longer discriminate against prospective tenants on the basis of being in receipt of housing assistance or rent supplement
Brendan
Click to expand...

The Irish Human Rights Commission should be disbanded.

It has precious little to do with human rights, and is riddled with political insiders and hangers-on pushing their own personal political agendas.
 
Bronte said:
I decided to have a peek at the info, you can't put 'professionals only ' in the ads anymore.

http://www.ihrec.ie/download/pdf/important_changes_to_equality_law_for_rental_market.pdf

Here's an interesting idea. Can social welfare tenants now sue Dublin council for discrimination because it's rent ceiling/cap means they cannot rent anything in Dublin Bet they didn't think of that.
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That's interesting Bronte. But for a landlord now, all they have to do if they do not want RA tenants is to keep the asking above the threshold.

Don't RA tenants need the LL to fill in a form and state the rent?

Don't they need to seek accommodation within a certain rent bracket?

This is the key - a LL is not obliged to rent below the asking. Not renting to a RA tenant whose limit has been exceeded is not against any law.
 
I have had good and bad private paying tenants and good and bad social welfare tenants. Simply differentiating on that basis solely, without considering all relevant factors is illogical and makes no business sense for a landlord (in my opinion).

The question when renting a house is fundamentally about the quality of the tenant, not first and foremost about the method of payment. Theoretically if there were two tenants of exactly equal calibre, and the only differentiating factor was one was social welfare and the other was not, I would lean towards the social welfare tenant (and have done so in practice). This has a slight added advantage of payment being more or less guaranteed (get the social to pay the money direct to your bank account).

Things like how long are they on social welfare, past and/or current employment record, whether they have managed to hold down employment at any stage in their life, do they move house every year (very bad sign), bank references, proof of ability to pay rent and ability to demonstrate, are you happy to have them renting your house, etc etc. These are much more important than a simple 'are they social welfare or not', and can help in assessing the quality of a tenant.
 
Work place relations commission is on record that they do not have resources to handle any complaint.

This is pie in the sky if you ask me.
 
Simple way to avoid any such claim is to apply the same vetting criteria to all prospective tenants.

I include in that a phone call to employer (and get signed permission to do so)
 
With all the Government interference in the private rental market such as "rent control" twisted PRTB rulings and "human rights" etc there will be a continued exodus of Landlords from the market. The political establishment (all of them) are hell bent on screwing the landlord business between taxation policy and the aforementioned issues.

Methinks it is not a great little country to do business (being a landlord).

I am sorry for getting into it. Planning how to extricate myself from it. Everyone to their own problems:mad:
 
I don't have property rented in Ireland and never will, the tax is onerous assuming you get paid per the terms of the lease, the risks of damage to furniture, repainting, refurb costs are high.

I do own property in the U.S, let unfurnished which is the norm over there, I have no sad tales to relay from my experience, tenants are vetted covering criminal and financial background checks and boy do most really respect and want to look after their credit rating, a cursory look at an episode of Judge Judy will open eyes about just how much people respect and wish to protect their credit rating.

Each to their own of course, I have nothing but respect for owners of Irish residential rental properties, a tough business needing tough sensible business people working hard to manage the asset, this news today can of course be circumvented but there will be tenants that will gain from this due to the non professional owners slipping up somewhere in the letting process.
 
Why on earth is it the responsibility of the Workplace Relations Commission to enforce this - who seem to have only just found out it's in their remit?
Why not the Coastguard or some other irrelevant body to tenancy?
Was it a deliberate attempt to placate the media by creating rules that won't be enforced???
 
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