Could the Government Seize Property

utmbuilder

Could the Government seize landlord's property's due to the rental crisis?

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (using the "Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917") issued an executive order to Seize people's Gold.

Could this be done under law in Ireland? Would you put it past this Government?

If a landlord owned less than 10% of equity in a property

could compulsory purchase orders be used or some new quango?

Lumen

utmbuilder wrote: »

Could the Government seize landlord's property's due to the rental crisis?

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (using the "Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917") issued an executive order to Seize people's Gold.

Could this be done under law in Ireland?

Maybe if the landlords were renting to nazis. :pac:

But then if they were rented, they wouldn't be purchased.

It's a toughie alright.

Topgear on Dave

Theres not a hope of government CPO'ing houses without a fight.

Homelessness has gone to crazy levels and the rental market is nuts. Its loud in the media/social media but it just doesnt affect a huge chunk of the population who own their own houses.

This wont get off the ground, if the goverment make a move on a vacant house as i see it 2 things will happen.
Someone will move in for a short time, the owner, a relation, anyone. Also I suspect that many of the vacant houses need huge money invested to bring them up to standard for people to live in.

Xterminator

They already can and do use CPO to acquire property. it doesn't even require new legislation. every council can do it, as can state bodies like the IDA.

here is a lit of some of louth cc's recent cpo's.
https://www.louthcoco.ie/en/Louth_County_Council/General_Notices/

the problem with CPO is its costly and take a long time. Its actually quicker to build a new house.

Question for those with a problem here, you already know they government can and do CPO properties to build roads, industrial parks, and runways. your not out protesting about this.

But you have a problem when the government tries to aid homeless families using CPO? To me homeless families would take priority over a wider road, or a new runway.

punisher5112

Simple fix.... Use council owned(public land) and set up a proper housing standards office to actually oversee new builds are up to code and correct.

Planning made easier and quicker.

henryporter

punisher5112 wrote: »

Simple fix.... Use council owned(public land) and set up a proper housing standards office to actually oversee new builds are up to code and correct.

Planning made easier and quicker.

Only problem with this simple, cough, quick fix is that there's 183,000 vacant homes in varying degrees of dilapidation around the country - enough for the approximate 8,000 homeless to have 22 homes each. There is no need to build new homes until the existing stock has been evaluated, repaired, retrofitted and most importantly rehabilitated - what's the point of global climate change agreements if we're just going to generate more carbon building more houses instead of reusing them.

awec

henryporter wrote: »

Only problem with this simple, cough, quick fix is that there's 183,000 vacant homes in varying degrees of dilapidation around the country - enough for the approximate 8,000 homeless to have 22 homes each. There is no need to build new homes until the existing stock has been evaluated, repaired, retrofitted and most importantly rehabilitated - what's the point of global climate change agreements if we're just going to generate more carbon building more houses instead of reusing them.

Isn't the problem that most of these vacant houses are in the wrong areas?

Gatling

henryporter wrote: »

Only problem with this simple, cough, quick fix is that there's 183,000 vacant homes in varying degrees of dilapidation around the country - enough for the approximate 8,000 homeless to have 22 homes each.

Another way of looking at it ,120,000-130,000 sitting on housing lists across the country ,
Take the over the properties and charge more than current differential rents but less than the current market rents ,
Freeing up at least 80,000 properties currently getting rent allowance and easing the rental market.

Use the public lands for affordable and properly managed developments

seamus

As regards the question in the OP, no the government couldn't seize people's property. It would be unconstitutional to confiscate lawfully held property without compensation or good reason.

However, expanded use of the CPO system might be a possibility. In realistic terms though issuing CPOs for individual vacant properties is likely a very poor use of resources. By the time you've gone through the legal and fixed costs of the CPO, and then renovated the property, you'll have spent far more than the cost of simply building a new house.

In this context, use of the CPO system would be more efficient for taking ownership of larger tracts of undeveloped land, or vacant single properties sitting on large sites. The government is not going to be CPOing your vacant terraced house in the middle of town, but might be interested in your old cottage sitting on 2 acres just outside the M50.

For the one-off vacant stuff most likely they will develop a simplified CPO-like scheme where they approach the owners of vacant properties with "take it or leave it" cash offers for their property.

Fred Swanson

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seamus

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Carrot and stick approach. If you want to keep the property you'll be incentivised to rent it out. If you insist on keeping it vacant then you'll pay additional levies and penalties.

Or if you don't want the hassle of renting it and don't like paying penalties, you can accept the government's offer.

Sitting on vacant properties for the purposes of speculation has to be stamped out. It's anti-social and costs the public and the state money.

Uriel.

Why does it suddenly need to escalate to CPO though? If the vacant properties are of such interest to the government why don't they (via the Councils) approach owners to buy such properties in a negotiated way? They could offer market value + x% as a sweetener - with a sweetener it might encourage people to sell and it would still be more cost effective than going down the CPO route

Uriel.

seamus wrote: »

Carrot and stick approach. If you want to keep the property you'll be incentivised to rent it out. If you insist on keeping it vacant then you'll pay additional levies and penalties.

Or if you don't want the hassle of renting it and don't like paying penalties, you can accept the government's offer.

Sitting on vacant properties for the purposes of speculation has to be stamped out. It's anti-social and costs the public and the state money.

Why not address some of the issues facing landlords in the first instance? Why not move to reduce tax on rental income or allow additional costs to be offset against tax liabilities (eg 100% of mortgage interest), rebalanced LL and tenant rights?

Dravokivich

Uriel. wrote: »

Why does it suddenly need to escalate to CPO though? If the vacant properties are of such interest to the government why don't they (via the Councils) approach owners to buy such properties in a negotiated way? They could offer market value + x% as a sweetener - with a sweetener it might encourage people to sell and it would still be more cost effective than going down the CPO route

So just as the various welfare contributions have reportedly inflated the cost of the rental market, you'd now be looking at a CPO bonus to inflate the cost of purchasing a house?

Uriel.

Dravokivich wrote: »

So just as the various welfare contributions have reportedly inflated the cost of the rental market, you'd now be looking at a CPO bonus to inflate the cost of purchasing a house?

It's not a CPO bonus. Read what I wrote. Instead of going to through the expensive CPO process offer market value plus an additional %. It could be cheaper to the State than the costs (and time) associated with CPO.

Also, it would be (like it is with CPO) the government choosing the property it wants rather than applying across the market.

Dravokivich

Uriel. wrote: »

It's not a CPO bonus. Read what I wrote. Instead of going to through the expensive CPO process offer market value plus an additional %. It could be cheaper to the State than the costs (and time) associated with CPO.

Also, it would be (like it is with CPO) the government choosing the property it wants rather than applying across the market.

You can call it whatever you want. Doesn't change the potential outcome on the market, that is already pointed to the government with what happened with the rental market.

Uriel.

Dravokivich wrote: »

You can call it whatever you want. Doesn't change the potential outcome on the market, that is already pointed to the government with what happened with the rental market.

Either way, my point is, if the Government is considering or decides to consider the CPO route I think there are less expensive and draconian options available (in the same bracket) worth trying first.

dashoonage

Or they could just make it worthwhile being a landlord again....

emeldc

Dravokivich wrote: »

So just as the various welfare contributions have reportedly inflated the cost of the rental market, you'd now be looking at a CPO bonus to inflate the cost of purchasing a house?

But for a lot of LL's (myself inc) that MV price plus say, a 10% bonus would still leave me about €60k short of what I paid. I'm not saying I'd definitely sell but I'd consider it.

Riskymove

Uriel. wrote: »

Either way, my point is, if the Government is considering or decides to consider the CPO route I think there are less expensive and draconian options available (in the same bracket) worth trying first.

Councils can already purchase property...without needing any bonus....as mentioned any extra on to market value will simply raise prices across the board

the issue raised is homes left vacant, not necessarily those on the market.

Owners should be encouraged to do something with vacant homes - ether rent or sell or face a tax or charge etc otherwise they simple hoard it until peak prices

Uriel.

Riskymove wrote: »

Councils can already purchase property...without needing any bonus....as mentioned any extra on to market value will simply raise prices across the board

the issue raised is homes left vacant, not necessarily those on the market.

Owners should be encouraged to do something with vacant homes - ether rent or sell or face a tax or charge etc otherwise they simple hoard it until peak prices

Again I'm not talking about "homes on the market", I'm not even advocating that the government go on a spending spree. Rather, I'm saying IF the government is considering the CPO of houses they feel worth buying (such as, for example vacant properties identified via the new website), they should perhaps try a negotiated purchase of those houses first rather than going from zero to CPO. CPO is an expensive and drawn out process that creates nothing but bad feeling. As it stands CPOs already commonly include goodwill and or disturbance payments in the prices offered on top of market value. IF the government wants to purchase these identified houses they could try the negotiated route first before going CPO. That's all om saying.

Overall, the reality is if government wants to encourage people into the renal market then it needs to address the reason why landlords are leaving the market or else decide to move Ireland towards large scale landlordism by creating that market place (if that is what it wants).

um7y1h83ge06nx

No way would they try and seize property. Whatever about urban areas it would create serious civil unrest in rural areas. It would take a very brave person to seize land or property from a farmer!

But I have noticed a creeping attitude change towards property owners by politicians in recent times. Now we have the comments of the last few days. Before that we John Halligan "If I could bring in legislation to goddamn jail landlords, I would jail the bastards" http://www.thejournal.ie/john-halligan-interview-2801068-Jun2016/.

I'm very surprised that FG would be caught saying anything that may even be construed as wanting to seize property, would go against a lot of their supporters I would have thought.

Riskymove

Uriel. wrote: »

ARather, I'm saying IF the government is considering the CPO of houses they feel worth buying (such as, for example vacant properties identified via the new website), they should perhaps try a negotiated purchase of those houses first rather than going from zero to CPO.

and I am saying they should simply impose sanctions on vacant homes in order to encourage owners sell or rent at market rates

no drawn out expensive process or significant cost to State

Riskymove

Ivory Grumpy Yardage wrote: »

No way would they try and seize property. Whatever about urban areas it would create serious civil unrest in rural areas. It would take a very brave person to seize land or property from a farmer!

the State has CPO'd lots of rural land and dwellings over the years for Motorways etc

Uriel.

Riskymove wrote: »

and I am saying they should simply impose sanctions on vacant homes in order to encourage owners sell or rent at market rates

no drawn out expensive process or significant cost to State

Which they may well try to do.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

Impose sanctions on vacant property because it is vacant? Wow, the government can go a sh*te.

If you own a property, you should be allowed to do whatever you want with the property. Live in it, rent it, or leave it vacant. Most people who own property have already paid enough in taxes. Why should they be further penalized to help fix a situation caused by our government?

This is the blame game again.

punisher5112

As I've mentioned before we had housing in Dublin and many other counties but are bright spark fools in power decided ah sure sell it off to private foreign investors at a complete loss and give them a tax break of paying no tax whatsoever....

Seriously we need these fools out.

henryporter

punisher5112 wrote: »

As I've mentioned before we had housing in Dublin and many other counties but are bright spark fools in power decided ah sure sell it off to private foreign investors at a complete loss and give them a tax break of paying no tax whatsoever....

Seriously we need these fools out.

To be replaced with... more fools?

the_syco

awec wrote: »

Isn't the problem that most of these vacant houses are in the wrong areas?

The problem is that the vacant houses are not where the homeless want to live.

If you paying for a house, you buy where you can afford. If you're homeless, seemingly you can wait until you get a house in a nice area.

robp

punisher5112 wrote: »

As I've mentioned before we had housing in Dublin and many other counties but are bright spark fools in power decided ah sure sell it off to private foreign investors at a complete loss and give them a tax break of paying no tax whatsoever....

Seriously we need these fools out.

The so called vulture funds would have to demolish buildings in Dublin to make the situation worse. They arent making it worse.