Some plain speaking from the chair of the RTB

The RTB operates within the legislation it was set up under.

Complain to the politicians about the stupid laws, and not the agency charged with enforcing them.

Brendan
There is the spirit and the letter of the law. As so many have observed our rules seem to be mirroring mainland Europe. Could it be possible our political masters are taking their orders from there?
 
There is the spirit and the letter of the law. As so many have observed our rules seem to be mirroring mainland Europe. Could it be possible our political masters are taking their orders from there?

I think they are simply copying someone else homework. Also if you do what everyone else is doing it mitigates any blame and responsibility afterwards if it causes problems.
 
To be fair, those on rent-a-room scheme are literally the only landlords left receiving upfront tax exemptions. It is perfectly fair that they be expected to give something back in the form of reasonable regulatory oversight.
Landlords who rent out entire properties don't get 14k per year tax emptions and have a raft of terms and conditions to follow.
 
How ironic that the SF spokesperson is quite happy to acknowledge the truth in the quiet safety of a committee hearing almost nobody will actually ever notice.
He would be correct - landlords are leaving the market because most of them don't just expect a return from renting but also from capital gains (which incidentally, would be minute if you bought in 2006). It would be nice if he also admitted that in those cases there isn't a thing you can do to the market by intervention that would stop those landlords from selling voluntarily.
 
That's precisely what they do mean.
Normal people who were fortunate enough to buy their own comfortable homes on the open market from private developers and whom never had a single close family member live in social housing, are being gaslit to the point where they actually believe the odd idea that a state that has never managed to provision anything with 100% effectiveness is somehow going to magically do a better job of delivering housing for everyone of any financial status or life stage better than the current mix of mainly private market with a small amount of public provisioning can do.
 
The Committee hearing transcript is here. It's 45 pages but some quick highlights






 
Also it's the banks giving the mortgage which often stipulate (afaik) the vacant procession. It's not solely a seller's preference.