I received a yellow card for saying the phrase "Johnny Cash"

Donald Trump

Hi,

I received a yellow card for the following post.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=104938745&postcount=17

The phrase that was replaced by "<mod snip>" had originally said "Do you know the singer Johnny Cash? He was good wasn't he?".

I honestly don't see why or how this was perceived as a "cryptic suggestion of illegal activity".

To summarize the thread, the original poster said that his tenant was moving out and he wanted his sister to take it at 65% of the current price. However he was worried that that would establish a rent cap for future tenants.

Other posters suggested a number of things including:

In reality who's going to report the rent that the sister is charged to the RTB or anyone else for that matter though? "

Others suggested he set the rent at the higher rate but then just have her not pay and not pursue the arrears

Why doesn't the OP state the rent is market rent, register on that basis, get the sister to pay the first month at that level and then she goes into "arrears" for future months.

Others suggested that he set it up so that she "rent a room".

She could just rent "one room" in the house rather than the full house she would only have to pay a percentage of the full house. The other rooms could just be for your own use officially. This would get around the setting of rent as firstly it can be argued she is a licensee (thus the house is not subject to the rpz rules) or secondly even if she is considered a tenant she would only be paying a percentage of the full rent.

Even if you read between the lines for my own suggestion I only suggested that he have his sister move in to look after the place. This would be a perfectly normal and not unusual scenario.
Additionally, a family member giving you cash is not illegal. The OP obviously has to pay the mortgage. If he/she doesn't have enough for living expenses and his sister wants to give him some money to help him out then that is fine. I never suggested he doesn't pay applicable tax

I had messages with the person who gave me the card and he/she told me to appeal it here if I wanted to.


Maybe some people just don't agree that Johnny Cash was a good singer!

Toots

Hi Donald Trump, seeing as how you've attempted to resolve this by PM already, I'll ask one of the Soc CMods to have a look.

Pat Mustard

Good afternoon, Donald Trump, I'll take a look at this. Please be aware that there may be some additional delay due to the bank holiday weekend.

In any event, I might ask you to clarify exactly what you meant by the Johnny Cash reference, for the avoidance of misunderstanding later on.

Donald Trump

Ok. thanks. No rush.

"Johnny Cash" is somewhat slang for the word "cash" but in a more general sense can be taken to mean doing something "off the books" or unofficially.

Allowing a family member to stay in a house is not illegal. It is not unreasonable to have someone stay in a house for either security reasons or just to keep it maintained. Being given money or helped out by a family member is not illegal either.

Other suggested solutions such as to officially on paper have a tenant "rent a room" are in fact much more insidious. Under that scenario, a tenant waives a lot of their rights. Additionally, the landlord can potentially pay no tax on the income if they then try to claim that they themselves are living there as their principal residence. Another one implied that the level of rent being paid would be mis-reported intentionally. I think that charges could potentially be pressed against a landlord who was found to be doing these things. But neither was warned. So it is confusing to me as I fail to see how anyone following my suggestion could be convicted of anything.

To allow a person into a house, without a lease agreement is more dangerous for the owner. Because if the owner may find it difficult to prove what they are owed and they may face a lengthy battle to get rid of "squatters". So it is only something that could really be countenanced under the scenario of a close family member that you trusted.

I never suggested that the owner not declare the income or not pay all applicable taxes. In fact, if the owner remains responsible for repairs etc., they won't be able to write off those expenses, leading them to paying more taxes

Pat Mustard

Thanks, Donald Trump.

Donald Trump wrote: »

Allowing a family member to stay in a house is not illegal. It is not unreasonable to have someone stay in a house for either security reasons or just to keep it maintained. Being given money or helped out by a family member is not illegal either.

I agree with you that there is nothing illegal about accepting cash. However, the basis for the mod warning was that you made a veiled suggested that the Rent Pressure Zones legislation should be breached.

From boards.ie FAQ:

Forbidden topics of discussion:
...
How to do illegal things (this ranges from software piracy, to swindling the Revenue Commissioners)

From the forum charter:

The_Morrigan wrote: »

Illegal stuff is illegal. It's Boards.ie policy not to discuss illegality and it's definitely not welcome here. Members have been banned over this previously, seriously, save yourself the hassle and leave it out. The property market has a very public image and has an impact on every person, whether they be a home owner, a tenant, a professional landlord or an investor and discussion of illegal practices, or other activities damaging to the discussion in this forum does none of its members any good and is prohibited.

Members looking for information on, ways to, or advocating work arounds on property or tax law or other illegal or morally dubious practices will be banned.

Looking at your post in the context of the overall thread, it looks like your suggestion was that the OP should pretend that the rent was high in order to circumvent the rent pressure zones legislation.

Do you accept that?

Donald Trump

No, sorry, with all due respect the opposite is the case. The owner cannot arbitrarily raise the rent. That is the nub of their issue. They are worried that by allowing their family member to stay there on a lower rent that that will set a new reference point for future raises.

My remark about "setting the rent too high" is tongue in cheek for giving the owner an excuse/justification as to why they can't rent it out and therefore need a family member to move in for security reasons.

If he was previously charging 1000 and the tenant moved out, he can of course say if asked, "oh maybe I set the rent too high as the previous tenant moved out and now I cannot find a new tenant".

However he cannot arbitrarily raise it to say 2000. If that was possible, he wouldn't be having this issue in the first place. Or else he could just give it to his sister for 650 and then later rent it out to another person back at 1000 again.

Pat Mustard

I've considered the foregoing and reached a decision to uphold the warning, for reasons outlined earlier.

You are free to request Admin review of this decision, if you wish.

Donald Trump

Yes please. I will request a review. I don't want to cause trouble and I appreciate your time but I think that the warning was over the top and unfair

The moderator who gave me to warning snipped the phrase about "Johnny Cash". (S)he appeared to have issues with that phrase but your reply appears to uphold the warning based on another sentence in the post. I apologise if I misinterpret.

Thanks in advance, and no rush

hullaballoo

I will review this. Please bear with me.

hullaballoo

Ok, I've looked at this in quite some detail.

On the one hand, you are offering up very cogent ex post facto justifications for your post. On the other, the post is quite clearly advising what is a legally dubious solution. By legally dubious I mean if the advice was followed, the person following the advice would be acting illegally and or unlawfully or there would be some doubt about the legality of the act.

In terms of the infraction, you have as I said offered legally dubious advice. That's not technically an infraction if you read the charter and site rules strictly. But the clear intention of the rules is that advice should not fall into the legal grey area and must always be in compliance with not just the wording but also the spirit of the law.

You were advocating a legally dubious act and the charter and site rules prohibit posts of that nature. I was debating upgrading the card to a red card infraction but since, as I have said above, in this case the spirit rather than the plain wording of the rules was breached, I am satisfied that a yellow card infraction is the appropriate level of censure.

This thread can be marked as resolved.