Media: 3 Tenants awarded compensation after their landlord refuses to engage in HAP

Stheno

How would this work for lusted properties that due to being listed cannot be converted to meet hap requirements?

Mrs Shuttleworth

Really Interested wrote: »

My understanding is each of the 3 tenants had been tenants for a while. Each entitled to HAP, landlord refused to engage. So tenants still paid LL but not able to get money from state. If LL engaged then the payment direct to LL in the amounts the tenants had to pay so tenants at a loss because of action of LL.

The WRC had power to hear the matter the only real question was the new ground retrospective. The new ground is to discriminate based on entitlement to state payments.

Seemed a silly thing for LL to do to be honest. Now he has collected rent he could have collected from the state but now must pay back to tenants.

I can understand in theory (but not agree) that refusing a tenant because they are a HAP claimant at the start of a tenancy could be discriminatory. But in this case there's no comparator, the tenancy was already running on its own terms.

Really Interested

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

I can understand in theory (but not agree) that refusing a tenant because they are a HAP claimant at the start of a tenancy could be discriminatory. But in this case there's no comparator, the tenancy was already running on its own terms.

That is exactly the argument the LL ran and it was the issue that the WRC decided. It will be expensive to appeal.

Eric Cartman

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

My tenant is moving out end September. I can only legally rent to €1053 whereas all other newly advertised units in complex are €1400. It's a toss up between AirBnB, revamp or rent a room. I'm not going to be the only chump in the village.

Edit: I'm leaning towards AirBnB / short corporate let.

if its in a nice part of dublin give me a shout when that comes round, doing some work for a professional full service short let co.

Mrs Shuttleworth

The practical effect of all this will be the rental market driven completely underground, like the oldest profession.

Mrs Shuttleworth

Eric Cartman wrote: »

if its in a nice part of dublin give me a shout when that comes round, doing some work for a professional full service short let co.

Great thanks.

davindub

The_Conductor wrote: »

Honestly- I think its a very dangerous and a very slippery slope.
I do not believe we should have multiple bodies adjudicating on tenancies- irrespective of whether, or not, its the core tenancy law that is the legislation infringed on. By all means have a WRC representative at the RTB for cases that feature equality issues- however, to adjudicate wholly in a different venue- is a bad bad idea.

If the RTB is not up to adjudicating these cases- they need to be strengthened- in which case they might hurry up with these and other cases- the common refrain from both tenants and landlords- features the glacial pace at which they move...............

I think this is a very bad idea- and is opening a Pandoras box- from which neither tenants nor landlords will emerge unscathed.

I get what you are saying, but the RTB adjudicato rs are not judges, they may well take on the equal status acts in the future, but it might not be practical to have two bodies with their own interpretations, judgements etc. They definitely do not have the resources to consult with outside bodies or delay judgements that the higher courts have.

jamesthepeach

The_Conductor wrote: »

If a landlord agrees to take a HAP tenant- and the property fails the HAP inspection- the landlord's payment is stopped immediately- as he/she is deemed to be in breach of their contractual obligations to the local authority under the scheme- wholly regardless of whether, or not, the property complies with all standards as laid out in the Residential Tenancies Act (as amended)- or whether or not the tenant continues to pay the local authority their share of the rent........

I.e. you can have a perfectly acceptable tenant, continue to pay their share of the rent, in a property fully compliant with the RTA, and the LA stop the rent.

For good measure- the local authority will not enter into correspondence with the landlord if a HAP payment is stopped, on data protection grounds...........

Honestly- the only sane thing to do- is specify a fully refundable 3 months rent upfront as a deposit from a prospective tenant, any tenant on HAP or RAS- is accepted- on the basis of a local authority pre-inspection- and minimum 3 previous landlord references from all- alongside confirmation that the prospective tenant has not taken a case against the landlord to the RTB/PRTB........

You'd be nuts to take on a HAP/RAS tenant- without a LA pre-inspection- and you'd be nuts to take on any tenant- without 3 months deposit.

Ideally- rent unfurnished if at all possible.

This is turning into a completely nutty situation.

You should be insisting the hap inspection is done the within 3 working days too and that hap should be paying for the vacant apartment for those days until it's done.

jamesthepeach

The_Conductor wrote: »

Honestly- I think its a very dangerous and a very slippery slope.
I do not believe we should have multiple bodies adjudicating on tenancies- irrespective of whether, or not, its the core tenancy law that is the legislation infringed on. By all means have a WRC representative at the RTB for cases that feature equality issues- however, to adjudicate wholly in a different venue- is a bad bad idea.

If the RTB is not up to adjudicating these cases- they need to be strengthened- in which case they might hurry up with these and other cases- the common refrain from both tenants and landlords- features the glacial pace at which they move...............

I think this is a very bad idea- and is opening a Pandoras box- from which neither tenants nor landlords will emerge unscathed.

I think that a landlord should be allowed.to choose to go or court. They should not be compelled to use the biased rtb for conflict settlement. The rtb are not to be trusted by a landlord, are not fit for purpose and this should be allowed to be bypassed and go straight to a fair hearing through the courts instead

jamesthepeach

usernamegoes wrote: »

Seems like the LL was a corporate LL by the way the adjudication is worded "When this complaint first came before me on 16th December 2016, the Respondent was not legally represented and two members of Management attended on its behalf. "

Maybe they will have the funding to fight it and sort it out once and for all. I'd even drop in a donation if they looked for finding.

Michael D Not Higgins

jamesthepeach wrote: »

I think that a landlord should be allowed.to choose to go or court. They should not be compelled to use the biased rtb for conflict settlement. The rtb are not to be trusted by a landlord, are not fit for purpose and this should be allowed to be bypassed and go straight to a fair hearing through the courts instead

That defeats the entire purpose of the RTB. They were created partly to relieve the pressure on the courts. If they can be bypassed, what are they even there for?

FrStone

The_Conductor wrote: »

40k fine- for a private individual- even if they were in the wrong- and I'd argue that the main issue here was the LL argued the wrong case- aka he/she tried to get it dismissed on a point of law- rather than attacking the system head-on to show it was totally ridiculous............

40k though? My god.

If you get into the letting game (be it accidental or not), you're no longer a private individual. If you want to remain a private individual, let your property via a company and avail of limited liability. However, landlords don't want any of the tax disadvantages of owning property via a company. You can't have it both ways.

Just an aside, on the tax thing. The only way a landlord is discriminated against from a tax perspective is not being allowed a deduction for lpt and 100% of the mortgage interest. For most landlords renting is an aside so the profit is of course taxable at their marginal rate.

Really Interested

The_Conductor wrote: »

Was there any explanation of how they came up with the 40k fine?
Seems completely and utterly over the top- and without any justification.
Also- was it clarified what the story with the landlord is- are they one of the 1-2 unit landlords (who make up 63% of the entire market)- or a large scale landlord?

The 40k- just sticks in the gullet- even if they were making a finding against the landlord- they could have given him/her a reasonable fine- 40k just seems so ridiculous- its the sort of fine that they're trying to bankrupt them- or worse........

40k fine- for a private individual- even if they were in the wrong- and I'd argue that the main issue here was the LL argued the wrong case- aka he/she tried to get it dismissed on a point of law- rather than attacking the system head-on to show it was totally ridiculous............

40k though? My god.

It is not a fine. A fine is something paid by someone who has breached some law and is paid to the state. In this case it was 3 awards of damages due to tenants because of a breach that caused a loss.

The LL by its actions took rent from the tenants and refused to allow the tennant get money from the state. To be honest a bit stupid though? My God!

rawn

Are the HAP specs particularly unattainable or something? Mostly people complain about smoke alarm batteries! I agree that the government is handling this in exactly the wrong way, but insisting on a minimum standard cannot be a bad thing? As is constantly mentioned in this forum, being a landlord is a business. The property is their product and pretty much all products in the market must meet certain standards, why should this be any different? What particular HAP standards are landlords struggling to meet?

Mrs OBumble

FrStone wrote: »

Just an aside, on the tax thing. The only way a landlord is discriminated against from a tax perspective is not being allowed a deduction for lpt and 100% of the mortgage interest. For most landlords renting is an aside so the profit is of course taxable at their marginal rate.

There's another way they're discriminated against: rental property income is treated as unearned. If any of it is put into a pension scheme, then it doesn't qualify for the tax-relief that earned income gets.

ted1

If the landlord brings the property up to spec I presume that he can evict the tenants and raise the rent because improvements have been carried out

Mrs Shuttleworth

ted1 wrote: »

If the landlord brings the property up to spec I presume that he can evict the tenants and raise the rent because improvements have been carried out

If you want to evict the tenant on those grounds you have to obtain quotes/invoices from builders etc and make a Statutory Declaration. Then when the works are carried out you have to offer the property first to the same tenant.

Mrs Shuttleworth

Really Interested wrote: »

The LL by its actions took rent from the tenants and refused to allow the tennant get money from the state. To be honest a bit stupid though? My God!

The tenants entered into an agreement to pay the rent. It shouldn't be any business of the landlord where they subsequently get that money. If the landlord wasn't willing to take HAP because of its onerous conditions, that should be the end of the matter. The tenants should have started looking for somewhere else. That this ruling is retrospective is unjust and will inject massive insecurity into a very tenuous market.

utmbuilder

I reckon the next play of the Government will be to attack airbnb's , seen this coming they are going to go on a rampage passing the buck of blame onto landlords and kick the **** out of them now for their mistakes.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Hmm, between this and the feelers the Government are putting out regarding old people renting out their homes they are getting very sticky around private property ownership.

And this is coming from Fine Gael, imagine if the likes of SF were in power. Given the history of the FG party and the parties that amalgamated to form it, it's pretty mad, although Ireland has been rapidly moving to the left the last few years.

dr.fuzzenstein

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

There's another way they're discriminated against: rental property income is treated as unearned. If any of it is put into a pension scheme, then it doesn't qualify for the tax-relief that earned income gets.

This has been said so often in this thread that one can only assume that the people who say "yeah, but you're running a business!" are then jamming their fingers in their ears and go "LALALALAAAAAAA!!! I CAN'T HEAAAR YOUUUU!!!!"
I have often disagreed with LLs here, but the tax situation is totally out of order.

The_Conductor

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

If you want to evict the tenant on those grounds you have to obtain quotes/invoices from builders etc and make a Statutory Declaration. Then when the works are carried out you have to offer the property first to the same tenant.

Thats all well and fine in theory- however, as was proven in Galway at the start of June- regardless of what it has cost the landlord to bring the unit up to HAP standard (the figure of 32k was used in the Galway case)- 1. Its not an allowable cost against taxable income- as its an improvement of the property, rather than a repair, and 2. The local Authority insist the original tenant is entitled to the property, under the HAP scheme, at the previous RPZ rate- as the 'repairs' (they're repairs to the Local Authority- but not to the Revenue Commissioners) have not materially changed the letting- they have simply brought it up to HAP spec.........

I.e. HAP standards- are being preached by local authorities as a fundamental standard that all tenants are entitled to. Yet- they significantly diverge from building regs as they apply to pre-existing buildings, and are classified as upgrades by Revenue. Yet- if you don't do them- you're at fault. And if you do do them- you don't get to increase the rent to market rates- regardless of what you paid.

The same Management Company was used in the June case- as in the case with the 3 tenants- and they are a competent, long established company, who know exactly what they're doing- its the various organs of state who are interpreting rules and requirements in unique ways, to suit their ends- and very often in complete and utter contradiction with one another.

At this point- the stage is being set for a landlord to either bring a case against a local authority, with the Revenue Commissioners as a notified party- or vice versa, against the Revenue Commissioners- with their local authority as a notified party- the relevant Ministers should be named parties on the case (of course their civil servants will get them taken off- but its the principal of the matter).

As it stands- and wholly aside from the remarkable taxation situation- you are quite simply damned, no matter what you do.

Funny how both this case (the three tenants) and the June case- were all Galway cases rather than Dublin cases- for such a small city they're having an outsized influence on the direction tenancy and taxation law, as it relates to residential lettings, is going.........

The landlord in this case- patently, was badly advised- and argued a point of law- which was probably accurate- but which was ignoring the bigger picture. Its yet another blackened eye for landlords- from the government- despite the Ministers assertion that he intends to lighten the burden on small landlords who have 1-2 properties (who make up a remarkable 63% of all residential lettings- but are paying 96% of all tax on declared rental income).

The cards really are stacked against any small scale landlord remaining in the sector- and continue to stack in more and more inventive and onerous manners against them.

jamesthepeach

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

That defeats the entire purpose of the RTB. They were created partly to relieve the pressure on the courts. If they can be bypassed, what are they even there for?

What are they there for indeed. To fcuk landlords over is my guess. They simply aren't fair, so it's unfair to have to use them.
If you could take them to court to expose their unfairness and have compensation from them when they make a harsh judgement then they might think twice about being fair.
As it is they are to risky to come up against so you are just better off in business such as short term lets where they don't enter the equation.

jamesthepeach

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

If you want to evict the tenant on those grounds you have to obtain quotes/invoices from builders etc and make a Statutory Declaration. Then when the works are carried out you have to offer the property first to the same tenant.

But at a higher rent, which would be fine for.the landlord. Wonder if happy would still want it then

Really Interested

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

The tenants entered into an agreement to pay the rent. It shouldn't be any business of the landlord where they subsequently get that money. If the landlord wasn't willing to take HAP because of its onerous conditions, that should be the end of the matter. The tenants should have started looking for somewhere else. That this ruling is retrospective is unjust and will inject massive insecurity into a very tenuous market.

The tenants paid the rent there is no evidence that the LL found any conditions of HAP onerous only that LL refused to allow the Tennants claim through HAP.

Have you any evidence that the LL allowing HAP would have cost the LL?

jamesthepeach

utmbuilder wrote: »

I reckon the next play of the Government will be to attack airbnb's , seen this coming they are going to go on a rampage passing the buck of blame onto landlords and kick the **** out of them now for their mistakes.

I reckon that might well be their next Ill informed play alright.

At least if you are on Airbnb you can sell if they do that.

What about this though...
Next move to be .. preventing landlord selling their property empty with a sitting tenant.
So if we're rented to a tenant now I'd be selling up pronto, before you can't. Imagine what that will do to your property value. Everyone will want out, nobody will dare buy. And it will happen overnight so you can't do anything about it. Then you are stuck... no rights at all with a depreciation asset that you can't even sell.

That's where its headed.

My advice, and I need we ever thought it would come to it, to all landlords is to give your notice to vacate and to sell up now before somebody takes a pen and effectively takes your property from you, while leaving you with all the headaches and costs associated with a being landlord.

ted1

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

ted1 wrote: »

If the landlord brings the property up to spec I presume that he can evict the tenants and raise the rent because improvements have been carried out

If you want to evict the tenant on those grounds you have to obtain quotes/invoices from builders etc and make a Statutory Declaration. Then when the works are carried out you have to offer the property first to the same tenant.

Of course there will be quotes, how else would the work get done ?

But the tenants will now have to pay more

Askthe EA

rawn wrote: »

Are the HAP specs particularly unattainable or something? Mostly people complain about smoke alarm batteries! I agree that the government is handling this in exactly the wrong way, but insisting on a minimum standard cannot be a bad thing? As is constantly mentioned in this forum, being a landlord is a business. The property is their product and pretty much all products in the market must meet certain standards, why should this be any different? What particular HAP standards are landlords struggling to meet?

It really depends on the properties age. The one I was involved in was a 20 year old house, so didnt have ventilation in the sitting room. Land lord had to get the wall cored and vented to comply (despite the tenant living happily in the property for years before) - my own house does not have ventilation in the sitting room as its 1920s. Property had no mould issues but landlord had to install mechanical ventilation in the ensuite and bathroom to comply. Electricians arent cheap. Oh, and said vents had to be wired independently of the lights so the vent didnt come on with the lights. Electricians know how to charge. So, in order for the landlord to comply with HAP, take the financial burden off the tenant, it cost him approximately €1500.

Had he not accepted HAP, he wouldnt have incurred these costs.

rawn

Askthe EA wrote:

Had he not accepted HAP, he wouldnt have incurred these costs.

The rule about having vents in rental properties has been around for years though, no? Are the HAP regulations just regulations that have already been in place, or have they added new ones that LLs were previously unaware of?

davindub

ted1 wrote: »

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

ted1 wrote: »

If the landlord brings the property up to spec I presume that he can evict the tenants and raise the rent because improvements have been carried out

If you want to evict the tenant on those grounds you have to obtain quotes/invoices from builders etc and make a Statutory Declaration. Then when the works are carried out you have to offer the property first to the same tenant.

Of course there will be quotes, how else would the work get done ?

But the tenants will now have to pay more

Refurbishments actually don't effect the Rpz cap.