Could the Government Seize Property

lawred2

awec wrote: »

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

what's a wrong area to someone sleeping on the street?

Topgear on Dave

Graham wrote: »

Why wouldn't they be able to provide vacant property data?

"Confidentiality and data protection"

http://www.cso.ie/en/aboutus/csodataprotocol/confidentialityanddataprotection/

To this end, the Office receives information on individual persons, households, business and other undertakings. This information is obtained either directly in statutory or voluntary inquiries or indirectly from the administrative records of public authorities.

All individual information obtained by the CSO is treated as strictly confidential. The information is used solely for statistical purposes.

Results are published in aggregate form and great care is taken to ensure that details relating to an identifiable person or undertaking are not inadvertently divulged.

This confidentiality is guaranteed by law.

http://www.cso.ie/en/aboutus/statisticalinquiries/statisticalconfidentiality/introduction/


CSO relies on trust to get people to fill in the census form truthfully, if people think their information is being shared and used for other things than statistics they will be less likely to fill in the form.

Graham

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

"Confidentiality and data protection"

<SNIP>

An empty property has no right to privacy.

Topgear on Dave

Graham wrote: »

An empty property has no right to privacy.

"This information is used SOLELY FOR STATISTICAL PURPOSES".

The CSO purpose is not to dish out information willy nilly to other government departments.

Colonel Claptrap

The council didn't source individual properties from the census. They were tasked with identifying vacant properties and see how that tallied with the overall figure of 3,000 in the census. It didn't.

.......

This post has been deleted.

antoinolachtnai

The story states:

Its study, which involved council officials visiting houses listed as vacant, found that only a very small number of houses in the north county Dublin authority area (perhaps only 50 or 60) were genuinely unoccupied, compared with the 3,000 figure stated for Fingal in the official census returns.

they had a list. It is not clear where they got the list. Perhaps they got the list from the 'vacanthomes.ie' website? In which case it is not surprising that the list was completely useless. But if that is the case, it doesn't have any bearing on whether the census vacancy figures are correct or not.

Graham

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

"This information is used SOLELY FOR STATISTICAL PURPOSES".

The CSO purpose is not to dish out information willy nilly to other government departments.

I would assume an empty house hasn't completed a census form so the only data is the property is empty. I don't see any PII in that ifnormation.

As others have suggested, it could also be the LA trying to correlate the overall census statistics with their own info.

Colonel Claptrap

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The story states:


they had a list. It is not clear where they got the list. Perhaps they got the list from the 'vacanthomes.ie' website? In which case it is not surprising that the list was completely useless. But if that is the case, it doesn't have any bearing on whether the census vacancy figures are correct or not.

Therein lies the problem.

Let's assume that the government want to tackle the problem in Fingal. How do they know which houses to target? They legally can't use the census. The website you cited can't be trusted, and if the council used a different method to identify them, the numbers are barely significant.

The time, effort and money sank into such a project would return a tiny fraction of vacant houses. Those houses would be bought at market value anyway.

Why not simply use that funding to build houses instead? CPO is a red herring and a complete waste of time and money.

And that's without looking at the many loopholes property owners could use to get around it.

antoinolachtnai

It's easy enough really. You put a significant extra tax (through the LPT system) on all the houses that don't seem to be anyone's principal private residence and don't seem to be listed on the Register of rented accommodation that RTB maintains. You see who complains. Then the people who complain can call the RTB or the local authority to get a certificate confirming that their house isn't vacant and the occupier can submit that to Revenue to sort things out.

There could also be some 'carrot'. If your house is determined 'vacant' you could be allowed to sell it without incurring CGT within a year.

The best scenario is certainly not to CPO. The best scenario is to get the people to rent the houses or to sell them to someone who will rent them or live in them.

Graham

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It's easy enough really. You put a significant extra tax (through the LPT system) on all the houses that don't seem to be anyone's principal private residence and don't seem to be listed on the Register of rented accommodation that RTB maintains.

Even simpler.

Put a reasonable property tax on ALL properties.

That offers 3 additional advantages:

1) it levels out property based tax revenues
2) incentivises right-sizing of peoples accommodation
3) opens the possibility of removing the heavy front-loading of property taxes on new builds

seamus

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

"This information is used SOLELY FOR STATISTICAL PURPOSES".

The CSO purpose is not to dish out information willy nilly to other government departments.

Read it again - data on individuals is used solely for statistical purposes. A vacant property is not an individual and the CSO is not legally prevented from providing their list to other departments.

antoinolachtnai

It Is 'individual data', not data on individuals. The Statistics Act is very clear. CSO data is not for operational or investigative use under any circumstances.

Topgear on Dave

Sorry, I apologise if I am wrong. I read it as everything detailed was confidential, i would be fairly uncomfortable with the CSO sharing out very detailed results to other departments.

I presumed the houses would be generally covered by the "undertaking".

"Results are published in aggregate form and great care is taken to ensure that details relating to an identifiable person or undertaking are not inadvertently divulged."


*sorry mods if i am derailing this thread

seamus

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It Is 'individual data', not data on individuals. The Statistics Act is very clear. CSO data is not for operational or investigative use under any circumstances.

I stand corrected:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1993/act/21/enacted/en/print#partv

34.—The Office may provide, for statistical purposes only, information obtained in any way under this Act or the repealed enactments, in such form that it cannot be directly or indirectly related to an identifiable person or undertaking, to such persons and subject to such charges, conditions and restrictions as the Director General may determine.

Sorry, I apologise if I am wrong.

No you're not, I am. My apologies.

Topgear on Dave

seamus wrote: »

I stand corrected:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1993/act/21/enacted/en/print#partv



No you're not, I am. My apologies.

Thank you :pac:

Uriel.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

The purchase price.

That's not compensation.
That's consideration. And forced consideration at that.

LuckyLloyd

Uriel. wrote: »

That's not compensation.
That's consideration. And forced consideration at that.

Well, it will be fair consideration, including any legal / surveyor expenses that are accrued. And if you don't want to sell and the property is usable? Use it.

Graham

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Well, it will be fair consideration, including any legal / surveyor expenses that are accrued. And if you don't want to sell and the property is usable? Use it.

I'd argue it's not fair consideration unless it equates to the replacement value of the property at whatever date in the future your intended use/disposal of the property was planned.

Graham

Did anyone discover where the funding for the threatened compulsory purchases is going to come from. Which budget and how much?

antoinolachtnai

The same budget they use to buy houses and build houses presumably? TheLAs are buying houses all over the place. It makes a lot more sense to buy unoccupied houses than occupied houses.

antoinolachtnai

CSO issued a statement. LIst didn't come from them.

http://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/pressreleases/2017pressreleases/pressstatementcsoresponsetoirishtimesarticleonvacanthousingdata/

The_Conductor

Graham wrote: »

I would assume an empty house hasn't completed a census form so the only data is the property is empty. I don't see any PII in that ifnormation.

As others have suggested, it could also be the LA trying to correlate the overall census statistics with their own info.

From talking to a few census enumerators- particularly in a Dublin context- they had significant issues delivering census forms to numerous properties- for a variety of reasons- including gated communities, people refusing to answer the door, people denying any knowledge of the English language, people refusing to answer questions- and in a disquieting number of cases- all of which were reported to local Gardaí- census enumerators being threatened. Add into all of this- several different ethnicities who might have unhappiness dealing with officialdom- and you have a recipe for 'vacant properties'

I would attach a large degree of scepticism to CSO 'vacant property' numbers.

antoinolachtnai

So you think that CSO enumerators are marking dwellings where they didn't manage to deliver a form or get answers as vacant? Have you read CSO's note about how it counts vacant properties?

I am not saying you are wrong but what you are saying is a very big claim indeed. If it is true then the census population figure is understated by a couple of percent.

The_Conductor

Thats from talking to a few census enumerators- if you put in an official request to the CSO- they will doubtless advise what the official policy is for dealing with the 'non-respondents'.

Uriel.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Well, it will be fair consideration, including any legal / surveyor expenses that are accrued. And if you don't want to sell and the property is usable? Use it.

Depends what you mean by fair?
But at least you've moved on from compensation terminology.

I don't think it's fair at all that you could be CPOed for refusing to rent out your property, particularly in a situation where the balance of rights is so stacked against you.

The_Conductor

Uriel. wrote: »

Depends what you mean by fair?
But at least you've moved on from compensation terminology.

I don't think it's fair at all that you could be CPOed for refusing to rent out your property, particularly in a situation where the balance of rights is so stacked against you.

If we ever get supply up to 'normal' levels (allegedly 25k units per annum) are owners of property going to have their property rights restored?

The most unfair proposal of all- is that owners not be entitled to live in their own property if/when the time comes for them to need it- or indeed a family member. A need is a need- yes, but having a vested interest in a property- should account for more than the current regulatory regime is suggesting.

Uriel.

And is this the type of person we're eroding property rights for?

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/i-just-want-a-home-for-my-children-mum-on-housing-list-for-12-years-36130478.html

titan18

Surely the owner could argue they're under duress to sell which would make any sale illegal. You threaten someone with fines unless they sell and it's be hard to argue that it isn't duress

Xterminator

The_Conductor wrote: »

If we ever get supply up to 'normal' levels (allegedly 25k units per annum) are owners of property going to have their property rights restored?

.

your rights remain unchanged. no new legislation is being drafted. The government & state bodies always had the right to use CPO in the public interest. This has not changed!!!

County councils have been CPOing properties for years. some more than others.