Landlords, what have you decided to do about the new amendments?

Paulw

I guess I misread one of the exceptions to what the previous rent was, in relation to the market rate.

Clampdown

murphaph wrote: »

Clampdown wrote: »

Mmmm yes, quite right you are, I too am making up all kinds of fees. Charges apply should a tenant text, make eye contact, or pay rent without a deep bow or curtsy. That will teach them to seek reform through their elected government!

Reform is fine. All the reform for the last 20 years has been in favour of tenants. Nothing meaningful there to help landlords at all.

A 4% cap (which is all that's making headlines) for sitting tenants would have been fine with me. That they overnight forced landlords who have been generous to their existing to be generous to all future tenants is what sticks in my craw.

Yeah, all those generous landords... If such a mythical creature exists, they got screwed by the tactics of the greedy ones, NOT tenants. That's who the government reacted to.

Now all the generous landords are on here threatening to leave the market (no one believes you!) or hit tenants with more moneygrab fees simply out of spite for the government making a botched attempt at control.

We actually need a hard cap on rents for certain types of properties in certain areas and a proper 3rd party escrow security deposit system, no point in half measures in a few rent pressure zones.

murphaph

Clampdown wrote: »

Yeah, all those generous landords... If such a mythical creature exists, they got screwed by the tactics of the greedy ones, NOT tenants. That's who the government reacted to.

Now all the generous landords are on here threatening to leave the market (no one believes you!) or hit tenants with more moneygrab fees simply out of spite for the government making a botched attempt at control.

We actually need a hard cap on rents for certain types of properties in certain areas and a proper 3rd party escrow security deposit system, no point in half measures in a few rent pressure zones.

A hard cap is mad cap. Let's say you set the cap in D6 at 2k for a 3 bed. Overnight you price potential investors out against owner occupiers as the return becomes so abysmal. As existing landlords sell, the properties will always be bought by owner occupiers and eventually there will be no rental properties available in that area.

The landlords doing current good tenants a good turn have been screwed by the state. These landlords exist but nobody ever comes on a forum to tell you about them. Why would they?

Good luck anyway. I'm sure rent control will work better in Dublin than Stockholm and Berlin.

handlemaster

Clampdown wrote: »

Yeah, all those generous landords... If such a mythical creature exists, they got screwed by the tactics of the greedy ones, NOT tenants. That's who the government reacted to.

Now all the generous landords are on here threatening to leave the market (no one believes you!) or hit tenants with more moneygrab fees simply out of spite for the government making a botched attempt at control.

We actually need a hard cap on rents for certain types of properties in certain areas and a proper 3rd party escrow security deposit system, no point in half measures in a few rent pressure zones.

And for problem tenants your balanced proposal would be what ?

newacc2015

Clampdown wrote: »

Yeah, all those generous landords... If such a mythical creature exists, they got screwed by the tactics of the greedy ones, NOT tenants. That's who the government reacted to.

Now all the generous landords are on here threatening to leave the market (no one believes you!) or hit tenants with more moneygrab fees simply out of spite for the government making a botched attempt at control.

There is an amazing book out this year from the American sociologist Matthew Desmond called 'Evicted: Profit and Poverty in the American City'. He is actually a lecturer from Harvard University. He looks at the commercialisation of the rental industry in Milwaukee, US and the effects on tenants. The more commerical and concentrated the rental industry becomes ie most properties being owned by large landlords and companies, the more inhumane and profit driven it becomes. The further the property owner is from the tenant, the less fair they are to the tenant.

If look at the Irish property industry from the perspective of this book. Regardless of how generous or unfair you think mom-and-pop Landlords are ie a person with a single property, which I think you are incredibly unfair on. Wait until most tenants in Ireland are a tenant of a German insurance company or a Texan REIT. You are just another tenant on their system. They don't care if your mother has cancer or your wife attempted suicide. They just want to maximise their rent. If you cant make the rent, prepare to be evicted

When Irish tenants are just dealing with faceless funds as a landlord, they will realise how good their mom-and-pop landlord was. How they were reasonable on rent increases, made reduction during a recession etc. By then it will be too late

One thing I took away from the book was during the recession in the US. Landlord didnt reduce their rents. They would rather let their properties stay empty, then reduce rents as that would cause their other tenants to demand rent reductions. Lets see how well Irish tenants do in the next recession when there maybe no rent reductions on the table(versus the 50-60% rent cuts during the last recession)

Clampdown wrote: »

We actually need a hard cap on rents for certain types of properties in certain areas and a proper 3rd party escrow security deposit system, no point in half measures in a few rent pressure zones.

No we dont need hard caps. We need the state to build vast amounts of housing. Anything other than this is a cop out. It is easily to blame the greedy landlords for the housing crisis than the incompetent Government

FYI 99.7% of tenancies end without a deposit dispute. Out of those 0.3%, only 40% of those deposits were entirely unfairly withheld. So 99.85% of tenancies end with no deposit dispute. So why spend tens of millions on a deposit system that isn't needed?

Lumen

newacc2015 wrote: »

There is an amazing book out this year from the American sociologist Matthew Desmond called 'Evicted: Profit and Poverty in the American City'. He is actually a lecturer from Harvard University. He looks at the commercialisation of the rental industry in Milwaukee, US and the effects on tenants. The more commerical and concentrated the rental industry becomes ie most properties being owned by large landlords and companies, the more inhumane and profit driven it becomes. The further the property owner is from the tenant, the less fair they are to the tenant

I've not read the book but your post piqued my interest so I read a few Amazon reviews (here).

It seems that Desmond is focusing on one particular slum landlord ("Sherrena") who seems more like the archetypal "Jimmy Connors" character from the Irish Landlord forum than a faceless REIT - she only owns a couple of million dollars of property and it's all rented to extremely poor tenants. Would these people even be in the private rental market in Ireland now that the pre-63s are no more?

You argue that commercial landlords are faster to evict, but a quick scan of this forum suggests the no. 1 complaint that Irish landlords have is that they can't evict fast enough. So it's not the goodwill of the landlords that's holding back evictions here, it's bureaucracy and pro-tenant regulation.

murphaph

Lumen wrote: »

You argue that commercial landlords are faster to evict, but a quick scan of this forum suggests the no. 1 complaint that Irish landlords have is that they can't evict fast enough. So it's not the goodwill of the landlords that's holding back evictions here, it's bureaucracy and pro-tenant regulation.

The one does not follow on from the other. A mom and pop landlord may be more lenient on a tenant in hard times by for example reducing the rent, while a REIT will not, for fear of mass calls for rent reductions. The same mom and pop will need to more quickly evict an overholding tenant who has ceased paying all rent. The REIT can more easily sit out the overholder because it can price this overholding into its other tenancies as insurance and because it controls enough of the market to enable it to do so.

By protecting those that should be evicted speedily, the good tenants pay more. It's the same reason mortgage interest rates are higher in Ireland than the rest of the Eurozone.

athtrasna

Mod note

Can we get back on topic please. This isn't a book club thread

sunnysoutheast

Graham wrote: »

Nope, 4% of the 'rent last set'.

I'd be interested in seeing anything to the contrary,



Looks like they are


Source: RTB

This restriction is only for properties in current RPZs though, right? Not areas "under review" or whatever they call it.

76544567

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

This restriction is only for properties in current RPZs though, right? Not areas "under review" or whatever they call it.

As we have seen, the stroke of a pen means that anywhere can be designated a rent pressure zone, so if you are not charging full market rate, <mod snip: this is not the place for political rants> nothing you can do about it.
There is no time to react.

Bif

If you are renting a property outside the designated zones what changes have been made, if any? Thanks.

76544567

Bif wrote: »

If you are renting a property outside the designated zones what changes have been made, if any? Thanks.

No changes yet.
But a very disturbing precedent has been set now.
Dont maximise your rent at your own risk.

sunnysoutheast

76544567 wrote: »

No changes yet.
But a very disturbing precedent has been set now.
Dont maximise your rent at your own risk.

Thanks, yes that was why I was asking the question on behalf of a family member.

Their existing tenants are moving out very soon (having bought) and have been paying below market rent for a while now. The next tenants won't be.

murphaph

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

Thanks, yes that was why I was asking the question on behalf of a family member.

Their existing tenants are moving out very soon (having bought) and have been paying below market rent for a while now. The next tenants won't be.

Don't wait for the new tenants. The government could easily designate you in an RPZ overnight and you'd then be obliged to offer the current favourable rate to your as yet unknown new tenants! Assuming you haven't reviewed the rent in the last 2 years do it immediately.

76544567

murphaph wrote: »

Don't wait for the new tenants. The government could easily designate you in an RPZ overnight and you'd then be obliged to offer the current favourable rate to your as yet unknown new tenants! Assuming you haven't reviewed the rent in the last 2 years do it immediately.

Thats exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago. New places were designated overnight.

Bif

Has the 4 year tenancy rule changed to 6 year for areas outside the newly designated areas?

76544567

Bif wrote: »

Has the 4 year tenancy rule changed to 6 year for areas outside the newly designated areas?

Possibly not, but it could in the morning. And thats the problem now.

Baby01032012

Bif wrote: »

Has the 4 year tenancy rule changed to 6 year for areas outside the newly designated areas?

The 4 year to 6 year rule change inside the RPZ is only effective for new tenancies.

GGTrek

Bif wrote: »

Has the 4 year tenancy rule changed to 6 year for areas outside the newly designated areas?

It has been changed for the whole of Ireland but only for new Tenancies. In any case 4 or 6 years means nothing now. With repeal of section 42, part 4 tenancies have become INDEFINITE for all practical purposes! I posted in the legal forum the full legal argument and so far no one has been able to refute it. I am still hoping that someone can refute it. People are focusing only on rental caps, but the other changes were as big as the rental caps or in my opinion much worse.

Graham

GGTrek wrote: »

It has been changed for the whole of Ireland but only for new Tenancies. In any case 4 or 6 years means nothing now. With repeal of section 42, part 4 tenancies have become INDEFINITE for all practical purposes! I posted in the legal forum the full legal argument and so far no one has been able to refute it. I am still hoping that someone can refute it. People are focusing only on rental caps, but the other changes were as big as the rental caps or in my opinion much worse.

My understanding is a landlord can terminate a part 4 tenancy at the end of the 4/6 years subject to notice etc etc etc. The change is the removal of the 6 months security-limbo for the tenant at the start of a further part 4.

i.e. the decision has to be made approaching the end of the part 4 tenancy rather than anytime in the first 6 months of the further part 4 tenancy,

size5

GGTrek wrote: »

It has been changed for the whole of Ireland but only for new Tenancies. In any case 4 or 6 years means nothing now. With repeal of section 42, part 4 tenancies have become INDEFINITE for all practical purposes! I posted in the legal forum the full legal argument and so far no one has been able to refute it. I am still hoping that someone can refute it. People are focusing only on rental caps, but the other changes were as big as the rental caps or in my opinion much worse.

To me this is my greatest concern. My current tenants moving in June 2011(they have been exceptional), they pay slightly below market rate.

Can I still serve notice if I am going to sell the property(once I give them the required notice period)? Or do I now have to wait till it reached 8 years before I can do this?

GGTrek

Graham wrote: »

GGTrek wrote: »

It has been changed for the whole of Ireland but only for new Tenancies. In any case 4 or 6 years means nothing now. With repeal of section 42, part 4 tenancies have become INDEFINITE for all practical purposes! I posted in the legal forum the full legal argument and so far no one has been able to refute it. I am still hoping that someone can refute it. People are focusing only on rental caps, but the other changes were as big as the rental caps or in my opinion much worse.

My understanding is a landlord can terminate a part 4 tenancy at the end of the 4/6 years subject to notice etc etc etc. The change is the removal of the 6 months security-limbo for the tenant at the start of a further part 4.

i.e. the decision has to be made approaching the end of the part 4 tenancy rather than anytime in the first 6 months of the further part 4 tenancy,

Unfortunately your understanding has no legal basis. I have shown with case law and statute in the legal forum that to terminate a part 4 tenancy with a notice issued before the 4 years date and expiring on or after the 4 years date (a section 34b termination) you need to provide reason. This has been confirmed to me by two solicitors and by RTB adjudicator. The only question left is which reasons are acceptable. I am hoping to get more info from the two solicitors next week, since at the moment they are all out of office.

GGTrek

size5 wrote: »

GGTrek wrote: »

It has been changed for the whole of Ireland but only for new Tenancies. In any case 4 or 6 years means nothing now. With repeal of section 42, part 4 tenancies have become INDEFINITE for all practical purposes! I posted in the legal forum the full legal argument and so far no one has been able to refute it. I am still hoping that someone can refute it. People are focusing only on rental caps, but the other changes were as big as the rental caps or in my opinion much worse.

To me this is my greatest concern. My current tenants moving in June 2011(they have been exceptional), they pay slightly below market rate.

Can I still serve notice if I am going to sell the property(once I give them the required notice period)? Or do I now have to wait till it reached 8 years before I can do this?

You can still serve a section 34 termination notice for sale of property if you are not selling more than 10 dwellings in a period of 6 months. You can find sample notices and statements required by law here: http://www.rtb.ie/docs/default-source/notice-of-terminations-landlord-pdf/landlord-intends-to-sell-the-dwelling.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Graham

GGTrek wrote: »

Unfortunately your understanding has no legal basis. I have shown with case law and statute in the legal forum that to terminate a part 4 tenancy........

Here's the basis of my opinion:

Deputy Simon Coveney: The amendments in group 6 are on security of tenure. Government Amendments Nos. 69 and 87 increase Part 4 tenancies from four years to six. We had a good discussion on this matter in the Seanad. Many Senators would like no time limit on tenancies and for there to be tenancies of indefinite duration. What we say in our rental strategy is that we would like this to be the case at some point in the future. We got a great deal of feedback on this and my judgment was that if we jumped straight from four years to indefinite tenancies, it might spook certain landlords who might pull their properties from the market. We do not want that because the consequence would be to reduce supply in the short term. We are taking a step-by-step approach. We are going from four years to six years. We have effectively done away with the mechanism whereby there would be a second six-month probationary period after the six years. We are saying that Part 4 tenancies are now going to be for a six-year period. After those six years, decisions need to be made by the landlord and tenant and so on as to whether they want to go into another six-year period.

Source: transcript of Simon Coveney presenting the last amendments to the Seanad 21st December.

76544567

GGTrek wrote: »

You can still serve a section 34 termination notice for sale of property if you are not selling more than 10 dwellings in a period of 6 months. You can find sample notices and statements required by law here: http://www.rtb.ie/docs/default-source/notice-of-terminations-landlord-pdf/landlord-intends-to-sell-the-dwelling.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Only for the time being though. But as we now see, Coveny might wake up in the morning and decide that from tomorrow you can never ask a tenant to leave your property, even if you want to sell it.
This is the reason I am selling all but one of my properties now. And will sell the remaining g one should this new legislation not be successfully challenged very soon.

Lumen

76544567 wrote: »

Only for the time being though. But as we now see, Coveny might wake up in the morning and decide that from tomorrow you can never ask a tenant to leave your property, even if you want to sell it.

I don't understand why this (and long tenancies) is so contentious, in isolation.

Sitting tenants are currently an issue with buyers and banks when selling a property, but only because they indicate a problem tenant. If sitting tenants were the default this wouldn't be the case.

AFAIK commercial property typically attracts higher prices with tenants on long leases as it gives a known and stable yield.

76544567

Lumen wrote: »

I don't understand why this (and long tenancies) is so contentious, in isolation.

Sitting tenants are currently an issue with buyers and banks when selling a property, but only because they indicate a problem tenant. If sitting tenants were the default this wouldn't be the case.

AFAIK commercial property typically attracts higher prices with tenants on long leases as it gives a known and stable yield.

Commercial letting is a whole different beast to residential letting.
The two should not be compared, for obvious reasons. Most notable among them being what happens when something goes wrong, and how easily the rules are changed with a brain fart from a minister.

Lumen

Lumen wrote: »

Sitting tenants are currently an issue with buyers and banks when selling a property, but only because they indicate a problem tenant. If sitting tenants were the default this wouldn't be the case.

AFAIK commercial property typically attracts higher prices with tenants on long leases as it gives a known and stable yield.

Very true.
The problem here is that the courts are dysfunctional when it come to dealing with problem tenants and regaining posession - long delays and huge expenses and no comeback against the tenant who is thumbing their nose at everybody.

Lumen

Deleted User wrote: »

Very true.
The problem here is that the courts are dysfunctional when it come to dealing with problem tenants and regaining possession - long delays and huge expenses and no comeback against the tenant who is thumbing their nose at everybody.

Right, but that's an issue of enforcement of rules not the rules themselves.

Compensating landlords by depriving tenants of security of tenancy was the wrong solution.

Lumen

Lumen wrote: »

Right, but that's an issue of enforcement of rules not the rules themselves.

Compensating landlords by depriving tenants of security of tenancy was the wrong solution.

I agree that its the wrong solution but its the only one that is, in practice, available.

If the courts worked, as we have a right to expect them to, then that would be the correct solution. It would have other benefits too, for example landlords wouldnt have to be so picky selecting tenants.