Some plain speaking from the chair of the RTB

Brendan Burgess said:
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
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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?
 
Silversurfer said:
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?
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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.
 
Gervan said:
Meanwhile this
www.irishtimes.com

People renting a room ‘effectively have no rights’, housing charity says

‘Paradox’ in rent-a-room tax breaks compared to small landlords, Threshold says
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com
puts fear into my heart as a provider of rooms for the past 4 years.

I have shared my house with students, and people new to the area looking for their own place, usually for a few months, longer when Covid hit. But always knowing the house was in my control if difficulties arose. Any "profit" after paying extra electricity, heating, and bin costs, or replacing appliances has been put back into making a more comfortable home for the next paying guests.
I won't be the only one closing my doors if that changes.
Do they really want another housing option to close?
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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.
 
triggs said:
Interesting exchange at Oireachtas Housing Committee 15 Oct 2019.Chairman of RTB proferred an opinion that Landlords were leaving the market because of difficult Tenants and that Ireland had strong Tenancy rights.S.F housing spokesperson disagreed.He said Landlords were leaving because property prices had recovered to a point where Landlords could break even.A prescient observation and just a little premature in light of increasing prices.However my worry is this- is he implying that Landlords should not behave rationally in selling at an opportune time.If so is the concept of Rational Consumer to be suspended at the alter of some dystopian revision of conventional economic practice.I am afraid it is and do not see any point in complaining to some politicians who seem to occupy a Universe which is parallel to mine and who one day could assume office in our country
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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.
 
Mocame said:
Of course none of the critics have any idea of who will provide rented accommodation in the absence of these investors and with small landlords fleeing the market. The stock answer is 'the state needs to be doing more' as if the state should be providing accommodation for trainee accountants or software engineers working in Google!
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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

We will now look at measures taken by the RTB to help the situation. Clearly, complex legislation and rules can give rise to confusion or to a risk of inadvertent non-compliance. Having a clear and streamlined legislative framework in place would make it easier for property owners and tenants to understand and comply with their responsibilities, which would have a positive impact on the sector overall. There would also be benefits for the RTB in terms of process improvement and reduced administrative overheads. The RTB will engage further with the Department in 2023 on the case for reform of the Residential Tenancies Act.
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In 2023, the data analysis and reporting capabilities of the RTB will improve significantly as a result of the introduction of annual registration in April 2022 and of our new tenancy registration system in November last year. We acknowledge that the new registration system has created difficulties for some property owners and agents and we are working hard to address these. However, as we move towards the completion of the first cycle of annual registration in April next year, we remain confident that annual registration will provide the RTB with much greater visibility on rents for both existing and new tenancies.
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I will deal with the issue of the service quality from the RTB at the moment. There is no doubt that the current situation is a long way short of what one would regard as acceptable. We take it very seriously and are working very hard to remedy it. I have been with the RTB for the last ten months. Coming into the role, I have discovered that our systems and processes are not working well and people are finding it difficult to deal with the RTB. Unfortunately, that is a fact. This is despite the work of many highly committed predecessors of mine over the years
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The RTB has undergone a lot of change over the last four years and there was the pandemic as well. I am not using any of that as a get-out clause. I simply want to illustrate the difficulties that arise for small public bodies and the RTB is a small public body trying to deal with quite a complex area of administration using complex legal provisions. I can say that from my own experience, as someone who does not come from this background but from a different area of social regulation. Coming to terms with the rules and provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act and the way in which they have changed over the last five years is certainly a significant challenge for me, as it is for many people in the sector
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The theory is that you are selling into an owner-occupied market so the price will be higher. Whether or not it is a fact, certainly it is a fear that landlords have and they prefer to get the tenant out and sell the property with vacant possession. A comparison is often made with the commercial market in this area. That is a false comparison because if you are selling a commercial property, the quality of the tenant paying the rent is an issue for the entire investment. If you are buying an investment which is a property with a tenant, then you can check their accounts and so on
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Also it's the banks giving the mortgage which often stipulate (afaik) the vacant procession. It's not solely a seller's preference.
 
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