[Article] Landlords fail to register

Victor

http://www.thepost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-395242663-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FNews.asp

Landlords fail to register
14/11/04 00:00
By Barry O'Kelly

The vast majority of the country's 141,000 landlords are on course to miss the December 1 deadline for registering with the new Private Residential Tenancies Board.

Fewer than 5,000 have signed up and paid the €70 registration fee, according to Aideen Hayden, a member of the board that will mediate in disputes between tenants and landlords.

Hayden, who is chairwoman of the tenants' rights group, Threshold, warned this weekend that non-compliant landlords would be tracked down, pursued through the courts and fined up to €3,000 for failing to register.

Anyone who fails to register after an appearance in the Circuit Court will face an additional fine of €250 per day. In extreme cases, landlords could be jailed for failing to register.

"As a member of the board, I will make damn sure that landlords comply with this legislation," she told The Sunday Business Post.

Landlords previously had to register with their local authority. But less than 20 per cent of the 141,000 landlords identified in Central Statistics Office surveys registered.

"They feared that compliance would bring the Revenue down upon them," said Hayden. "How else can you explain why only 20 per cent complied with the law. Up until now, there has been no attempt to enforce the law and make the landlord register."

However, the fear about being reported to the Revenue was unfounded, she argued.

"The Revenue is not entitled to information about the names of people on the register unless they can provide us with the name of the particular landlord and his or her PPS number," she said.

"Non-compliant landlords will be tracked down, through the rent supplement records from the Department of Social Welfare."

The board will have the power to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants.

"This will lead to a flood of cases being dealt with by the board. It will give us more information about who has not registered," said Hayden.

shoegirl

I'm not surprised. The main reason why so many landlords evaded the original local authority registration requirement was a fear that it would end up being transmitted to the Revenue Commissioners (and rightfully so). With nearly 50% of registered properties inspected delcared substandard, its also possible that a large percentage are also afraid of minimum standrd inspections.

I'm not sure who will be responsible for policing the registration issue. While Ms Hayden is obviously enthusiastic, I would say that many of the more landlord-friendly members of the board will be less excited about the prospect of locating parasite landlords and hauling them through the courts. Its expensive and time consuming.

I would say that there is one and only one way to force landlords to declare their tenancies and that is when vacancies are advertised. Force newspapers, websites and agencies who advertise lettings to keep a full record of the landlords details for the viewing of the authorities. In this way it will be impossible for a rogue landlord to operate at all without registering. And they could also make it free of charge, since the work would be mainly be done by those who advertise lettings.

Of course I doubt that the registration question will be policed as it will most likely result in retaliatory action against tenants, or the landlord massively hiking the rent to cover their tax liabilities. The board won't want that, and so will leave well enough alone.

Imposter

How would that work with advertising on this site for example?

ken90

There are serious privacy issues here and before you say;
"Feck the dirty landlord"

I'm talking about the tenant even more than the landlord.

Have a l@@k at the form here

www.environ.ie/

See what info the tenant has to submit!

The previous reg. form did not require PPSN number of the tenant or 1/2 this level of tenant info.

I know that under the old scheme tenants received notices demanding info from Revenue, where landlords had registered properties.
It was obvious from these particular enquiries that Revenue had Xchecked Registrations with Voters lists.

Tenants should enquire from the Residential Tenancies Board whether all this information has to be put on the form by law.

Ther are bad landlords and sood tenants and vice-versa.

We dont need "nanny state", and needless intrusion into privacy.

Ken90