Pros and cons of letting through social welfare

I

izscan

Guest
i'm in the middle of buying an investment property and it was mentioned to me to let it through social welfare. is this a good idea ? how would i go about it ?
 
you are guarenteed weekly rental income from Dept of SW, with tenant making up balance.

I think it is a great system for landlord as there will never be a missed payment of the larger sum. If teant does not pay his/her portion, you are not out of pocket too much.
 
SW tenants are the riskiest end of the market in my view. You can be lucky, but the risk is that you will get a tenant that is disfunctional and gives you loads of grief -- don't forget that the SW system caters for tenants that usually don't work and may have problems of other sorts.

It is tempting to deal with a tenancy that is long term etc, but for me anyway life is far too short for the kind of grief that this sector can give you.
 
auto320 said:
SW tenants are the riskiest end of the market in my view. You can be lucky, but the risk is that you will get a tenant that is disfunctional and gives you loads of grief -- don't forget that the SW system caters for tenants that usually don't work and may have problems of other sorts.

It is tempting to deal with a tenancy that is long term etc, but for me anyway life is far too short for the kind of grief that this sector can give you.
Click to expand...


From personal experience I would agree with Auto320's opinion. I would be reluctant to rent to a SW tenant again particularly young mothers.

The RAS scheme is definitely a no no for me. I had a read of a RAS contract from Dublin Co.Co. The council can put whoever they like in your property and you have no say. If the tenant recks your property, the Co.Co. will only pay 50% of cost of repair up to max of one months rent. Every time a new tenant is put into the house by the council, you have to ensure that the house is back to the condition it was when the first tenant started their tenancy. Not very fair at all. Now if you think about it where will the council put anti-social/disfunctional people who have been evicted from another area and need emergency accomodation.........

I currently have a non-EU family living in my property who are here to work hard and make money. They have every respect for my property, keep it spotlessly clean and are no bother at all. If any repair work arrises they have no problem organiseing it themselves and I fix up with them later.
 
From personal experience I have had no problems renting to SW tenants, perhaps it's easier in West of Ireland. All my properties are rented to SW tenants including one rented to a young mother. They all pay me the rent direct and never had a problem in the 5 years they are renting.
 
I know of someone in the west of Ireland who had an apartment let to one of these SW tenants. The apartment upstairs was vacant temporarily and the tenant seems to have broken into it and turned on all the taps, then complained that his aparment was damp and demanded to be rehoused. This happened a couple of days after the landlord had discovered that the tenant had wrecked the place (it was a relatively new apartment block). I wouldn't let a SW tenant into any property, particularly as the local authorities now have plenty of choice of vacant investor properties and can negotiate punitive contracts.
 
The private sector and SW tenants are not a good match in urban areas. The regulation is dreadful and the risks are high. Ask the audience.

You need scale and an interventionist approach to get this to work. If you only have 1/2 properties which are single tenancies, you lack diversification if you take a hit from a troublesome tenant.
 
Spondulicks said:
The private sector and SW tenants are not a good match in urban areas. The regulation is dreadful and the risks are high. Ask the audience.

You need scale and an interventionist approach to get this to work. If you only have 1/2 properties which are single tenancies, you lack diversification if you take a hit from a troublesome tenant.
Click to expand...

Quoted for truth.
 
I would just say, be careful, i had alot of trouble with renting my property to a sw tennant. Get good references if possible and make sure that rent is paid every week.
I was speaking to a letting agent yesterday and she told me that the Dept no longer allow money to go directly to the landlord unless the recipient signs a form to allow it to be direct debited.
The sw tennants now receive this payment as cash on a weekly basis, I am disgusted that the government will allow this. My tennant was claiming this cash for 2 months almost without payment the rent for my house.
So just be wary, as you have read from the other posts, some people are fine and some are not. Sometimes it's just a matter of luck and having a good letting agent.
 
Bottom line is this, local authorities won't be in the least interested when the tenant wrecks your property. In fact, you may end up dealing with a minor clerk who not only doesn't care about your problems, but also resents that fact that you are a "wealthy" investor with more than one home! Local authorities, in Ireland or the UK in my experience, are impossible to deal with in these situations and will give you high blood pressure!

In the current climate where most towns have a surplus of "investment" property, the local authorities can afford to be very arrogant when dealing with the private-sector landlords, and rental deals are punitive in their conditions. The local authorities have managed to maintain their advantage by giving planning permission "against the run of play" to lots of developers for small units, thus creating a supply/demand imbalance that favours their rental needs for social housing. The oversold private sector are therefore providing rental housing at far lower cost than the councils could provide it for themselves, and a continuing inflow of new units provides the authorities with a stockpile of landlords who come round to believing that a social housing tenant is better than no tenant at all.

I'm not sugesting that this was some kind of "grand plan" by the cocos; they don't have that kind of collective brainpower, but they know that they now have a winning formula and are happy to exploit it.

It's a bad market folks, stay out of it.
 
Have to say I find the attitude on this thread somewhat disturbing. I moved abroad a few years ago and let my house out to a young single parent. Had no difficulties what so ever. I also know several others who have let their properties to people on Social Welfare including non nationals, also without any issues. imho this attitude is pure snobbery!
 
lightswitch said:
Have to say I find the attitude on this thread somewhat disturbing. I moved abroad a few years ago and let my house out to a young single parent. Had no difficulties what so ever. I also know several others who have let their properties to people on Social Welfare including non nationals, also without any issues. imho this attitude is pure snobbery!
Click to expand...

I don't understand why you would find people expressing their view on the topic disturbing. In my view, snobbery doesn't enter into it. If you read the above posts you will see that, Dublin Co. Council's contracts are not particularly fair when it comes to choice of tenant, or repair of damage done by tenant to a landlord's property.

If a landlord rents privately, they have a deposit which will go some, if not all of the way in repairing a badly damaged property. The county council seem to want landlords to carry out this work at their own expense. You might change your view if your tenant had been of a different calibre.

As Don King says, it's just business.
 
just here to say that don king and liteweight are correct...its business ..i myself has had alot of hassle from a sw tenant..trouble getting the rent from her and the place was trashed .every week i was getting calls from management company about noise etc.. as for those folkswho called it "snobbery", shouldnt you be calling Joe Duffy?
 
Last edited:
Great thread. Makes me realise how good my SW tenant is! Never any hassle with her - heading for three years. Considered raising the rent this time - decided against it. She's too good to lose.
 
yankinlk said:
Great thread. Makes me realise how good my SW tenant is! Never any hassle with her - heading for three years. Considered raising the rent this time - decided against it. She's too good to lose.
Click to expand...

I think its good to realise when you've a good tenant and sometime its worth losing a little money to retain a good tenant. How often should you try and rotate clients though?
 
lightswitch said:
Have to say I find the attitude on this thread somewhat disturbing. I moved abroad a few years ago and let my house out to a young single parent. Had no difficulties what so ever. I also know several others who have let their properties to people on Social Welfare including non nationals, also without any issues. imho this attitude is pure snobbery!
Click to expand...

I was a SW Tenant before. Without this assistance, I don't think I can afford to pay rent based on what I'm getting that time. And why a single mother has got to do with bad tenant rapport? I think we need to rephrase of what we want to say in here without justifying someone elses circumstances. It's all about going through a thorough process of letting a tenant be it under SW Tenant or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top