Do I have to pay towards the up-keep of greens in my housing estate?

charlotte o mahony

i am living in a estate in tipperary town. the council are going taking over the estate and will not cut the grass in the green areas. i received a letter in my door early this morning about every house paying 40 euro towards the residents association cutting the grass. it said someone will be knocking around next week to collect the money. if a person is renting the have to hand over there landlords details but i dont know who my landlord is because i deal with her through an auctioner! i will not pay this as there is over one hundred lived in houses in the estate so i do not see how they need 4,000 a year to just cut about 1 or 2 acres of grass! if i do not pay it can i be held liable? does this sound legal to you? thanks.

Barracuda1

Its is not up to tenants to pay for the upkeep of the estate. This can be passed on to the owner of the house to pay. Although if it keeps the place looking neat and tidy and if you don't mind paying its up to yourself. 4k a year seems alot to cut 1-2 acre of grass. You would pay aroung 120-150 per cut twice a month for six months a year approx 1500-1800 per year. Residence associations are registered with the local authority so can can apply for grants for the upkeep of the state. Have a look at your local authorities website for full details

Pawwed Rig

It is a voluntary payment so pay it if you want and don't pay it if you don't want to. I would not pass on my landlords details without at least mentioning to him what I am doing.
It is more about getting on with your neighbours and being part of a community though so for the sake of €40 I would be inclined to pay it.
If you have concerns ask for a breakdown of what you are getting for your money.

Doom

So much for the LPT....going to keep local areas/ services maintained.

the_syco

Is the council covering public insurance for that grass area? €40 for 100 houses would probably get just over €3000 as not everyone pays, or can pay. The housing estate can usually get some form of grant, but this grant has been tweaked in recent years, to be realistic in comparison to the area that the estate takes up. Also, as the council would be in charge of the estate, I don't know if they are eligible for the grant or not. Check you local CoCo website for this information, as the amount differs from county to county.

In my estate, the money goes towards insurance, a contract with a company to gut the grass and trim the trees. They mulch up the trees, and give it back, and the mulch is put around the shrubbery areas. The money also buys plants and trees, which are often planted for free by volunteers in my estate.

Although you don't know your landlords contact details (although I'm pretty sure by law the agent should give them to you, and/or be on your rental agreement), the inform the agent of the fee. Even though the landlord may not pay it, the agent may.

Citycap

Barracuda1 wrote: »

Its is not up to tenants to pay for the upkeep of the estate. This can be passed on to the owner of the house to pay. Although if it keeps the place looking neat and tidy and if you don't mind paying its up to yourself. 4k a year seems alot to cut 1-2 acre of grass. You would pay aroung 120-150 per cut twice a month for six months a year approx 1500-1800 per year. Residence associations are registered with the local authority so can can apply for grants for the upkeep of the state. Have a look at your local authorities website for full details

If the council arrangement is that they won't cut the grass then really it comes back to the house owners not tenants.
However €40 per house seems a lot. A proper residents association approach would be to obtain three quotes and decide on the best service, not necessarily the cheapest.
The decision can be explained at an A.G.M. and changed for the following year if needed.

Pawwed Rig

Citycap wrote: »

If the council arrangement is that they won't cut the grass then really it comes back to the house owners not tenants.

Why would it be the house owner rather than the tenant out of interest?

Barracuda1

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Why would it be the house owner rather than the tenant out of interest?

One of the rules the coucil adopted when they took over the estate from the builder. In 2006 my estate was landed with the job of cutting 20000sq meters of grass. To be fair the council used to cut the grass at the start of the season with a tractor and mower and leave it up to the residental association to maintain it for the rest of the year.

Pawwed Rig

Barracuda1 wrote: »

One of the rules the coucil adopted when they took over the estate from the builder. In 2006 my estate was landed with the job of cutting 20000sq meters of grass. To be fair the council used to cut the grass at the start of the season with a tractor and mower and leave it up to the residental association to maintain it for the rest of the year.

I have never heard of this! The council are legislating for a tax for home owners? They do not have the power to do this.

What are they demanding exactly? What are the penalties in the event of non compliance?

liquoriceall

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I have never heard of this! The council are legislating for a tax for home owners? They do not have the power to do this.

What are they demanding exactly? What are the penalties in the event of non compliance?

The estate I live in has not been taken on by the council & it has been suggested to us that even if they do in the future grass cutting will not be included.
Im just curious as to why the op thinks the landlord should pay? Surely the benefit is being gained by those who live in the estate??

Outkast_IRE

Its €40 per month because most resident associations unfortunately need to assume probably 50% wont pay for various reasons such as.

1. Im renting im not the landlord ( I think this is a poor excuse as many renters have kids using the green areas, students have kickabouts on green areas etc, I think renters should pay)
2. I don't have kids why do I care about the green areas.
3. Don't have the money.
4. Don't give a ****e about anything.

Unfortunate but that's the way it is.

I can say from experience that our estate its about 50% pay, and it costs €40 . If everyone paid it would be half that.

The thing to consider is that in current weather to keep the green areas looking well you are looking at a cut every 10-14 days maximum.

I honestly think that we should look at other European systems such as spain where you must pay into the community fund and if you don't you are in debt to them and can ultimately have proceedings brought against you.

Paulw

charlotte o mahony wrote: »

i received a letter in my door early this morning about every house paying 40 euro towards the residents association cutting the grass. it said someone will be knocking around next week to collect the money. if a person is renting the have to hand over there landlords details but i dont know who my landlord is. if i do not pay it can i be held liable? does this sound legal to you? thanks.

If it's a resident's association, then you have no legal responsibility to pay, and you have no reason to give over details of your landlord. If a stranger knocked on your door asking for money, would you just hand it over? I certainly wouldn't.

If you want to contribute, then do. If you don't, then don't. A resident's association has no power and no legal responsibility. They are simply a group of people with a common aim, in this case, to cut the grass.

This is really something that the local residents should address with the council, for the council to cut the grass. It should not be up to residents at all to do this.

Our council tried the same trick, but with enough people power, they gave in, and now the council cut the grass regularly.

Marcusm

The obligation to keep the land in proper condition and free from hazards falls on the owner of the land, in theory. If the council are only taking the roads in charge, in theory the developer shoud continue to maintain the appurtenant land. Good luck with this; the best solution is local voluntary work/contribution. It's the nature o f shared space/society. If renting, except on a long term basis, I wouldn't see an obligation to contribute. If you have kids who play on it, I would see a moral obligation.

Pawwed Rig

Marcusm wrote: »

If renting, except on a long term basis, I wouldn't see an obligation to contribute. If you have kids who play on it, I would see a moral obligation.

That is the point. There is no obligation on anyone to pay it. I would argue that as the tenant is benefitting, whether from use or keeping the area they live in looking nice, then it is more appropriate for them to pay it than a landlord who isn't benefitting from it at all other than to the extent that he may have a house in a slightly more desireable area. Having said that I believe the tenant should pay the property tax too but that is for another thread.
On a related point it is a bad time of year to be asking a landlord for cash as LPT and NPPR are both due around this time.

Cedrus

Barracuda1 wrote: »

Its is not up to tenants to pay for the upkeep of the estate. This can be passed on to the owner of the house to pay. Although if it keeps the place looking neat and tidy and if you don't mind paying its up to yourself. 4k a year seems alot to cut 1-2 acre of grass. You would pay around 120-150 per cut twice a month for six months a year approx 1500-1800 per year. Residence associations are registered with the local authority so can can apply for grants for the upkeep of the state. Have a look at your local authorities website for full details

If you're in the business can you call down and give us a quote, you look extremely competitive, however we would need to see your other estates and see what 12 cuts a year looks like.

In the real world, we are paying two men for 26 days a year, cutting grass, spraying weeds, trimming hedges/shrubs, removing broken trees, sweeping/blowing leaves and getting rid of all the waste. Our estate is more difficult than many because of all the planting that the developer threw in to sell houses, it's not at all maintenance friendly, but we like it now and nobody is voting for stripping stuff out.

€4000 a year sounds great to me but I don't know how easy/hard the OPs estate is to maintain, we pay more than twice that.

As to who should pay, it is voluntary and any RA who tries to force people to pay would be breaking the law, but I think anyone who benefits from the RAs efforts should contribute either financially or by voluntary efforts. Our estate got an "best estate" award from the Tidy Towns, that helps the landlords to rent their houses at a higher than average rate but few of them appreciate it.

The best contributors are often the ones who can least afford it, the worst tend to have flash cars in the drive or have kids who break the trees or play sports to the exclusion of others (we have an issue with teen hurlers who see it as their duty to disrupt any kid who dares to play soccer on one green). There is also a minor issue with fly tipping but it's always black bags of cans/bottles as if somebody is having boozy parties that they have to hide from others in their house

The bottom line OP is, if you get anything at all out of the estate being well kept, pay the money (it doesn't have to be what they are suggesting either - it's voluntary) or volunteer for cleanups. If you teleport in and out, keep the curtains drawn and are generally asocial, feck them, hold onto your cash and pass on their request to your landlord.

jimmycrackcorm

Doom wrote: »

So much for the LPT....going to keep local areas/ services maintained.

Firstly LPT only actually gets paid from next month. Secondly, there's quite a few who are holding off paying it while wondering why their services such as grass cutting are not being done.

ladysarah

I always pay it for houses I own. However I collect in my own estate and find it impossible to get landlords to pay so one year we didnot have enough money and grass was left uncut and the following year a good few tenants paid themselves as they could not endure another summer with uncut grass

Lantus

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Firstly LPT only actually gets paid from next month. Secondly, there's quite a few who are holding off paying it while wondering why their services such as grass cutting are not being done.

All tax in Ireland goes into a central pot. The gov chose to pick local services as the bit that would suffer but they could just of easily of picked roads, garda, healthcare etc. In other words its a marketing line.

Most LA's have been ensuring that any responsibility to cut the grass is put back onto the owners. Previsouly it was either included in the taking in charge process or even in the contract lease documents of the house. One local estate I know has listed Louth Parks department as being repsonsible for the lifetime of the estate to maintain the greens. The LA avoided this by simply closing the parks department showing the lengths they will go to to avoid such costs.

In terms of RA's it is great to see renters contribute and many do so because they are part of the community. In most estates there can be a huge amount of renters so to try and expect the owner to pay can be quite problematic and time consuming.

Estates where there is a functioning managment company dont have this issue but there are many that have fallen through the cracks and dont have any support. Relying on a local RA long term to do this is a massive undertaking and not really sustainable. There needs to be new legislation drawn up to provide legally enforceable community schemes to manage green areas. Almost like a scaled back OMC.

Calhoun

When i was renting, i never paid nor participated in the clean ups that were going on in the estates. I didn't use the green areas and considering that possible short term rental cycles we have in this country (up to a year) i find it very hard to be convinced that there is any moral obligation on a tenant to cough up.

Its all well and good to talk about drafting up new laws to force people to pay for the maintenance for green areas but i would think legislation around the length of fixed term leases ect would need to be looked at.

If we got into a situation where a tenant had the protection to be a long term resident in an area then i believe they should contribute but as i said above the could be moved on after a year.

The landlord on the other hand could have a better chance at shifting his/her house in the future if the area doesn't look like its in a poor state.

Marcusm

Calhoun wrote: »

When i was renting, i never paid nor participated in the clean ups that were going on in the estates. I didn't use the green areas and considering that possible short term rental cycles we have in this country (up to a year) i find it very hard to be convinced that there is any moral obligation on a tenant to cough up.

Its all well and good to talk about drafting up new laws to force people to pay for the maintenance for green areas but i would think legislation around the length of fixed term leases ect would need to be looked at.

If we got into a situation where a tenant had the protection to be a long term resident in an area then i believe they should contribute but as i said above the could be moved on after a year.

The landlord on the other hand could have a better chance at shifting his/her house in the future if the area doesn't look like its in a poor state.

Once you've been in place for 6 months you acquire security of tenure for a renewable 4 year period. You can give notice but the landlord can only evict you for specified grounds (to live in the property himself/family, to sell, to substantially renovate). The law is definitely behind the tenant here although perhaps knowledge and implementation of the law are less highly developed.

TheDriver

truth be told, no one wants to pay for things like grass cutting etc but also no one wants to live in a s**thole/ghetto/dirty spot. I pay it because it looks nice. Yes the council should do it but they don't and i love asking the councillors each time they come for re-election and they grovel.........it does need to be sorted out to be honest.
Driving around, you always know the estates with decent res committees and people coughing up

ShaShaBear

I had people call around to our new place about three weeks ago, looking for €20 per resident to cut a small hill of grass in the centre of the estate. There's no goalposts, or a playground - it's a steep but compact hill which I wouldn't even consider safe for a child to play on. Never mind the fact that it is covered in dog and cat poo! There are 167 houses in the estate and most of them are families (a few are groups of people renting together). The woman at the door demanded €40 from myself and my partner, and I told her that her attitude left a lot to be desired, and that besides which we had only moved in last week and simply did not have that kind of money to hand over on grass that isn't even on the property. She asked when my partner would be home so she could "reason with the breadwinner" and stood across from my house for a full hour waiting on his car to pull up.

We keep our front lawn tidy, our windows clean, and once a week we lift any litter outside our front gate and put it in our bin before it gets collected. Last week as we were doing this, we noticed a man cutting the grass and he told us we were a great sort for doing our bit. A bit of polite banter later, and we found out he's the husband of the woman who was collecting, and he owns the ride-on mower he was using :rolleyes:

TheDriver

that sounds like a bit of vested interest. In the interests of being good neighbours (and fair play, sounds like ye are), I think the next res assoc meeting, you should ask were quotes received for cutting the grass and that should start questioning things. Maybe residents should have a rota for cutting it if its that small??

ShaShaBear

TheDriver wrote: »

that sounds like a bit of vested interest. In the interests of being good neighbours (and fair play, sounds like ye are), I think the next res assoc meeting, you should ask were quotes received for cutting the grass and that should start questioning things. Maybe residents should have a rota for cutting it if its that small??

I suggested to the man that we all take care of a particular stretch of land out the front of our gates using our own time and equipment as it suits us, which would lead to easily weeding out the people that literally couldn't care less, and the people who are indifferent might be prompted to help at a cheaper rate. Our front lawn is tiny, I would have no objection to doing that size of a plot on the field itself, and if everyone in the estate did the same, there would be a patch about the size of a garden left on the crest. Expecting people to have the money when you happen to be collecting it is a bit much. I don't know about some people here, but we're lucky if we have €40 to spare week to week, and no harm to residential committees, but I am certainly not saving my spare money to hand over to a stranger so her husband (or anyone else for that matter) can cut an inconsequential hill that happens to be outside my house.

Paulw

Lantus wrote: »

Relying on a local RA long term to do this is a massive undertaking and not really sustainable. There needs to be new legislation drawn up to provide legally enforceable community schemes to manage green areas. Almost like a scaled back OMC.

Why??? It is the responsibility of the council to maintain developments they take charge of. They simply don't want to. They say they don't have the funds, manpower, etc, etc. But, if you get enough people behind you, and enough councillors, then the council will do what they are supposed to do, without you having to pay extra.

We pay enough taxes to cover all this. Why pay more?? Just hassle your local council. It does work.

Citycap

liquoriceall wrote: »

The estate I live in has not been taken on by the council & it has been suggested to us that even if they do in the future grass cutting will not be included.
Im just curious as to why the op thinks the landlord should pay? Surely the benefit is being gained by those who live in the estate??

The landlord should build it in to the rent as he should with the property tax. Tenants being tenants will do their best to pay as little as possible.

Give a few of the young lads on the estate a few euro and a 6 pack of Carling, and they'll have it done sharpish.

ShaShaBear

Deleted User wrote: »

Give a few of the young lads on the estate a few euro and a 6 pack of Carling, and they'll have it done sharpish.

To be honest, I kind of agree.