[Article] 19% of rented homes 'substandard'

Victor

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1025/breaking20.htm

19% of rented homes 'substandard'
CHARLIE TAYLOR

Nearly one in five rental properties across the country inspected last year did not meet minimum legal standards, according to statistics from the Department of the Environment.

The statistics, which were obtained by Fine Gael Senator Paschal Donohoe, reveal that 2,854 of the 14,880 rental properties checked by local authorities across the country in 2008 were found to be below minimum standards. This is equivalent to nearly one in five of all rented properties in Ireland.

The data shows wide discrepancies in standards across Ireland with almost half of rental properties in Dublin coming in below standards compared to just 9 per cent in Co Galway and 2 per cent in Co Wexford.

Donegal, Westmeath, Meath were among a number of county councils who reported a 100 per cent compliance rate for rented properties.

In the capital, 1,266 of the 2,822 properties inspected by Dublin City Council were found to be below the standards outlined by the Department of the Environment. This is equivalent to 45 per cent of all properties checked in the capital.

Despite the high number of failed inspections, only eight legal cases were taken against rogue landlords last year, just one of which was initiated by Dublin City Council.

Mr Donohoe expressed disappointment at the failure of county councils to take action over the failure of landlords to provide adequate accommodation.

"These figures show the poor maintenance of rental properties continues to be a huge problem in our towns and cities but that it is not been treated with the same seriousness by the different authorities involved in regulating the sector,” he said.

“I want the different local authorities to consistently implement new legislation in this area and use the revenue from increased fines to fund more enforcement," he added.

Xiney

scary yet unsurprising.

If you're wondering if your place meets the standard, here's the document you need to see:

http://www.myhome.ie/pdf/Rental%20Acc%20Standards.pdf

Keep in mind that it only applies if your tenancy started since February 2009, otherwise it doesn't come into effect until February 2013 so you should check out the 1993 regulations.

shoegirl

One of the reasons that Dublin is so much higher than the country is because a lot of counties failed to carry out a single inspection. Dublin would also have lower overall standards since there is a large concentration of conversions. It would be really interesting to breakdown levels of substandardness by property type and age. I would suspect that as much as 70-80% of Victorian conversions are substandard in terms of ventilation and water requirements.

What actually happens if a problem is found is that the landlord is told what is required and there is supposed to be a later inspection to find out if the work was done. A lot of violations are down to safety and ventilation. If there is no follow up inspection, its likely to explain why there are very few charges brought.

In my case, a place I lived in was found to be substandard because I had no hot running water (as it happened I had a power shower so it wasn't really a problem), but the "fix" for it created a far worse problem as previously I had free ESB with the flat, but because the landlord was forced to put in a water rad, he started charging me for ESB - at twice the rate ESB were charging him. Since this was costing me about 20 euros per week in summer, I had no choice but to leave that particular tenancy. So in my case, the cure was worse than the illness.

As far as I am aware, there used to be a compulsory annual inspection in the UK for all registered rented properties. Perhaps something like this would be useful in Ireland, with a certificate of fitness, which would encourage responsible landlords. Maybe a rating system would be even better still, as landlords could then use this to promote A-rated rentals, and tenants could then be able to see at-a-glance what the overall quality of the property is. One problem I've had as a tenant is that you really don't know til you view a property what to expect - for example, "central heating" often means electric storage heating which in my experience is very poor for our climate and in other cases it may mean that the landlord centrally controls oil-fired heating which is switched off for significant portions of the year. It would be nice to have an external assessment of standards that showed stuff like this.