In the Dail today

seamus

Kinley Blue Rattler wrote: »

This couldn't be more wrong. The right a person who is temporarily staying in another persons property on the owners permission should never ever trump the rights of the property owners right.

This right here is everything wrong with the market. Renters are viewed as temporary interlopers who should put up with it or get fncked. The landlord's right to his money should be protected even if it means throwing people out on the street.

We tried that. For thousands of years. It doesn't work; tenants get shafted, society ends up worse. Those who collect assets should be the bottom of the rung when it comes to the hierarchy of rights.

I find it hard to believe people are till coming out with this despite it being quite obvious that big LL's are worse than smaller LL and a lot of people wishing for it are now wishing they could go back to a small LL.

"Quite obvious"? How so?

I think you'll find renters would prefer to rent from a company with 500 properties on the books and official policies and procedures in place, rather than the cantankerous aul prick around the corner who thinks he has the right to come and go as he pleases and threatens to evict you if you dare ask for anything to be repaired.

People who own a property or two are the life blood of the market and getting rid of them would be a disaster. Like any business you are much better dealing with the owner than some employee.

Except that small landlord don't think of it as business. They think of it as their personal property. You've just said as much. This makes them a pain in the hole.

garhjw

seamus wrote: »

Kinley Blue Rattler wrote: »

This couldn't be more wrong. The right a person who is temporarily staying in another persons property on the owners permission should never ever trump the rights of the property owners right.

This right here is everything wrong with the market. Renters are viewed as temporary interlopers who should put up with it or get fncked. The landlord's right to his money should be protected even if it means throwing people out on the street.

We tried that. For thousands of years. It doesn't work; tenants get shafted, society ends up worse. Those who collect assets should be the bottom of the rung when it comes to the hierarchy of rights.

I find it hard to believe people are till coming out with this despite it being quite obvious that big LL's are worse than smaller LL and a lot of people wishing for it are now wishing they could go back to a small LL.

"Quite obvious"? How so?

I think you'll find renters would prefer to rent from a company with 500 properties on the books and official policies and procedures in place, rather than the cantankerous aul prick around the corner who thinks he has the right to come and go as he pleases and threatens to evict you if you dare ask for anything to be repaired.

People who own a property or two are the life blood of the market and getting rid of them would be a disaster. Like any business you are much better dealing with the owner than some employee.

Except that small landlord don't think of it as business. They think of it as their personal property. You've just said as much. This makes them a pain in the hole.

Renters rent. They don't own. How can someone who doesn't own a property be entitled to greater rights over the property than the owner? You seriously can't be saying that? Housing crisis has not been caused by private landlords. It has been caused by successive governments not building social housing. Thus has caused the supply issue. Talk about reality and not some poxy left wing ideology.

seamus

garhjw wrote: »

Renters rent. They don't own. How can someone who doesn't own a property be entitled to greater rights over the property than the owner? You seriously can't be saying that?

The person who resides in the property has greater rights than the person who owns it.

This is fact, and it is essential to structure rights in this fashion for the good of society.

Who do you think should have more rights over your home - you, who lives in it, or the bank, who owns most of it? If the bank decides that they could bulldoze your house and build four of them on it, should they be able to turf you out and do that? No, of course not.

The landlord/renter dynamic is not very different. This notion that "it's my property and I'll do what I like" is exactly why we have an insane property market where everyone wants to buy and nobody wants to rent. It's in the interests of landlords to make renting more attractive by making long-term leases a reality and security of tenure a pillar of the rental market. But the small-time landlords just see renters as leeches and lower-class animals and believe they should have the right to treat them as such.

garhjw

seamus wrote: »

garhjw wrote: »

Renters rent. They don't own. How can someone who doesn't own a property be entitled to greater rights over the property than the owner? You seriously can't be saying that?

The person who resides in the property has greater rights than the person who owns it.

This is fact, and it is essential to structure rights in this fashion for the good of society.

Who do you think should have more rights over your home - you, who lives in it, or the bank, who owns most of it? If the bank decides that they could bulldoze your house and build four of them on it, should they be able to turf you out and do that? No, of course not.

The landlord/renter dynamic is not very different. This notion that "it's my property and I'll do what I like" is exactly why we have an insane property market where everyone wants to buy and nobody wants to rent. It's in the interests of landlords to make renting more attractive, but the small-time landlords just see renters as leeches and lower-class animals and believe they should have the right to treat them as such.

You can't compare a property owner to a bank in terms of owning a property.

The market is the way it is due to lack if supply.

You lack a basic understanding if the situation and how it has come to this. I suspect you have grievances with landlords in the past and it is clouding your ability to think clearly. I'm sorry about that but you can't label all landlords the same.

The Student

Assetbacked wrote: »

While the tenant is using the property as their home, in the current environment, it should not be the case that they can be turned out because a home is being sold. Perhaps this should be restricted as a temporary measure for a couple ears until it is easier to move to alternative accommodation.

It’s a business relationship of course but we do not live in a completely unregulated market and this is a protection that should be brought in as an emergency measure by the government in conjunction with massively increasing supply of properties.

How exactly is it fair that a restriction be put on landlords as a temporary measure. We did not cause the crisis. If a landlord needs his property to either sell or for a family member then the tenant should leave. You want to restrict a landlord and give him nothing in return.

Should the State then say that we have council houses that are under occupied then single people on the council list should be housed in these properties with existing tenants as we have a housing crisis.

We are getting into very dangerous territory when we want the State to start dictating what we do with our own properties.

We do live in a regulated environment, the regulates may not be enforced but they exist. Some of the regulations are a bit excessive. Yes properties should be habitable but some of the regulations go beyond what is necessary.

The Student

seamus wrote: »

This right here is everything wrong with the market. Renters are viewed as temporary interlopers who should put up with it or get fncked. The landlord's right to his money should be protected even if it means throwing people out on the street.

We tried that. For thousands of years. It doesn't work; tenants get shafted, society ends up worse. Those who collect assets should be the bottom of the rung when it comes to the hierarchy of rights.

"Quite obvious"? How so?

I think you'll find renters would prefer to rent from a company with 500 properties on the books and official policies and procedures in place, rather than the cantankerous aul prick around the corner who thinks he has the right to come and go as he pleases and threatens to evict you if you dare ask for anything to be repaired.

Except that small landlord don't think of it as business. They think of it as their personal property. You've just said as much. This makes them a pain in the hole.

You don't want to accept that this is a business trans pure and simple. I can tell you from talking to work colleagues that the Professional landlords are not all they are made out to be.

Some are good but some are also bad, the same can be said for the small landlords.

LuckyLloyd

@Seamus: you're such a communist :pac:

Fol20

seamus wrote: »

It is the tenant's home. "Home" has a specific definition as being the place where someone is ordinary resident and has special protections under the constitution.

It is not the landlord's home. It is the landlord's property.

These are two related but very distinct definitions. The people on this thread can continue stating that "it is not the tenant's home", but they are wrong. Repeating incorrect statements won't magically make them correct.

It is important that the right to the integrity of one's home, trumps another individual's right to control their property. Property is just bricks and mortar, it's just an asset. Of no more significance than a field or a pair of shoes.
Security of the home is clearly of far more importance, individually, socially and economically.

Yes, it should be norm that properties are sold with sitting tenants. Banks will give mortgages without vacant possession, they choose not because they can get away with it.

Landlords should be allowed sell occupied properties with vacant possession, but it should be a specific action. That is, a declaration that the property was previously used as a rental, but is now being sold as a private dwelling. This would bar the vendor and any buyer from renting the property out for at least five years, with six-figure penalties for a breach.

It makes no sense that a landlord can turf out tenants, sell it to another landlord, who slots in new tenants.

And if landlords don't like this, then don't become a landlord.

We need to gut the housing market of small landlords; people who own a property or two on the side and have no business being in that position. They're a pox. We need our rental fleet to be operated by professional businesses, not half-arsed individuals.

The principle is the same as renting a car. It might feel like your car when your driving around spain, however its hertz or whomever that owns its. Yes it is your home but it is only your home temporarily until it isnt. Tenants in Ireland dont live long term in rental accommodation so why do you think they should have more rights that the property owner that might own it for a lifetime or for at least a decade or two? There is a lot of rental legislation to protect tenants as is and this is one the basic fundamentals that a owner can use to reclaim their property - not the tenants.


If a property is for sale, your eliminating the vast majority of buyers if it can only be sold to other landlords. There is a reason why student rentals although they are 3/4 bed are sold for a lot less than standard homes. I think if the roles were reversed and you found out you could be down 50-100k due to this very restrictive suggestion, you wouldnt be happy. You do know most properties that are for sale are not being bought by landlords but by owner occupiers.

Its easy to say dont be a landlord if you dont like this. When they bought the property, the legislation was not this however the government are changing the goal post so often its hard to keep up. If legislation of this nature does come in, landlord should be given enough notice so that they can sell it vacant so that any new landlords can buy into with their eyes wide open( you will then truly see that you will have no landlords left, this would also include reits as capital appreciate would be severely hit with this type of legislation)

Please do your research if you think reits are much better for tenants as most will max out their rental rate(as they should) while some of these 1 property landlords are not increasing rents for many years. Another simple way to get around these 1 property landlords is to bring in legislation that if you own 3 or less rentals, it needs to be managed by a licensed rental agent. i dont believe in this suggestion however if you really wanted a "professional" to manage them, it can be enacted, however my experiences with agencies as been far from perfect.

Assetbacked

The Student wrote: »

How exactly is it fair that a restriction be put on landlords as a temporary measure. We did not cause the crisis. If a landlord needs his property to either sell or for a family member then the tenant should leave. You want to restrict a landlord and give him nothing in return.

Should the State then say that we have council houses that are under occupied then single people on the council list should be housed in these properties with existing tenants as we have a housing crisis.

We are getting into very dangerous territory when we want the State to start dictating what we do with our own properties.

We do live in a regulated environment, the regulates may not be enforced but they exist. Some of the regulations are a bit excessive. Yes properties should be habitable but some of the regulations go beyond what is necessary.

In another 10 years when hopefully things start to have eased up, there will be a large cohort of people under the age of 45 who will have lived through this devastating housing situation and will be a majority when it comes to voting in people who also would have lived through this era and therefore policies which acknowledge long-term renting and a home as a human right in Ireland (even if not renting from the local councils) will be highly likely to follow. I was quite surprised, as I'm sure many others were, that 10,000 people marched yesterday afternoon in protest at the housing crisis.

I do not have a gripe at all with landlords, except for the institutional landlords ("REITs"); and absolutely feel that tenants should be turfed out for arrears of 2 months or for letting a property decay (unless agreement is reached) without having to go through the painstaking legal process. This would allow these properties to come back to the rental market quicker too which is good for tenants. The headline point is that, in the current crisis, we need security for tenants whilst working towards a system with average rents in Dublin dropping at least 50% (I think this would be about 1600 to 800 on the average) in order to approach something of a sustainable rental market.

seamus

garhjw wrote: »

You lack a basic understanding if the situation and how it has come to this. I suspect you have grievances with landlords in the past and it is clouding your ability to think clearly. I'm sorry about that but you can't label all landlords the same.

Yeah, your suspicions are entirely wrong. Not really surprising, you seem to be generally misreading everything.

I'm not talking about the current housing crisis, I'm talking about our sh1tty market in general.

We're a joke compared to most other western nations, and we've walked ourselves into this situation due to decades of housing policy which has prioritised owning over renting and cow-towed to landlords with nonsense clauses that allow tenants to be evicted because of a made-up relative that wants to move in.

If you rent out a property, you are obligating yourself to providing a core public service, the provision of a human right. And just like the ESB and Irish Water are subject to much more rigorous rules and obligations than other utilities, landlords have to accept much more rigorous rules. Property is not a product or a business, just like any other. And landlords should not be permitted to flit in and out of the business at will. If you enter it, you voluntarily submit to those onerous obligations. Including the acknowledgement that if you're providing someone with the basic necessity of a roof over their head, then you cannot just remove that from them because you feel like selling up or because you'd rather your granny was living there.

If you don't like it, then don't become a landlord. Easy.

garhjw

seamus wrote: »

garhjw wrote: »

You lack a basic understanding if the situation and how it has come to this. I suspect you have grievances with landlords in the past and it is clouding your ability to think clearly. I'm sorry about that but you can't label all landlords the same.

Yeah, your suspicions are entirely wrong. Not really surprising, you seem to be generally misreading everything.

I'm not talking about the current housing crisis, I'm talking about our sh1tty market in general.

We're a joke compared to most other western nations, and we've walked ourselves into this situation due to decades of housing policy which has prioritised owning over renting and cow-towed to landlords with nonsense clauses that allow tenants to be evicted because of a made-up relative that wants to move in.

If you rent out a property, you are obligating yourself to providing a core public service, the provision of a human right. And just like the ESB and Irish Water are subject to much more rigorous rules and obligations than other utilities, landlords have to accept much more rigorous rules. Property is not a product or a business, just like any other. And landlords should not be permitted to flit in and out of the business at will. If you enter it, you voluntarily submit to those onerous obligations. Including the acknowledgement that if you're providing someone with the basic necessity of a roof over their head, then you cannot just remove that from them because you feel like selling up or because you'd rather your granny was living there.

If you don't like it, then don't become a landlord. Easy.

Wow you are bitter about life. I'm sorry for that but clearly you are unable to understand the issues. You need to take emotion out and use common sense. Happy to engage again once you call down. Have a good day.

seamus

Lol, the guy who started the thread calling sane policies "communist" is accusing me of being emotional about it

Landlords and their land. People get so irrational over some dirt they aren't even using.

Fol20

seamus wrote: »

Lol, the guy who started the thread calling sane policies "communist" is accusing me of being emotional about it

Landlords and their land. People get so irrational over some dirt they aren't even using.

I’m not sure if your trolling now but it is land they are using. They have invested their hard earn cash and work effort to attempt to build up a pension pot while other might just blow all their money on temporary stuff like a 182 car. Each to their own but that’s far from the truth

Fian

Assetbacked wrote: »

If an owner lets out the property to someone and it is used by the tenant as their primary dwelling, that tenant needs full security of tenure. Selling a property can allow the landlord to kick out the tenant currently but that tenant calls the property their home, they may have no where to go but more importantly that is not a good reason to kick someone out of their home. It is not enough to justify this by saying to the landlord is allowed just because the property is his.

If landlords are scared and quite clearly ignorant with the use of terms like “communist”, then all that is required is a more streamlined process for removing bad tenants (e.g. tenants in arrears or tenants who are letting the property fall apart).

You seem to want the tenants to be able to remain in their home for as long as they like. There is a mechanism to do that - purchase. They do not own the property that is their home. Therefore they cannot expect to be able to preclude the person who does own it from selling. They have less security of tenure than an owner and this is necessary - otherwise people would be far less willing to let property. I entirely agree that tenants should be entitled to reasonable security of tenure and that landlords should not be entitled to evict them on a whim, but the permissible reasons why they can currently cut short a tenancy are all appropriate.

If this were teh law you would find large numbers of people saying - nope this is the last straw i will not let out my property if I can never get it back until the tenant decides they want to move on. I will put it on the market and sell it instead. Which would lead to lower occupancy rates - a rented house is likely to have more tenants sharing in it than would reside in an owner occupied house.

Seriously this would be the single most effective way to exacerbate the rental housing shortage.

Assetbacked

Fian wrote: »

You seem to want the tenants to be able to remain in their home for as long as they like. There is a mechanism to do that - purchase. They do not own the property that is their home. Therefore they cannot expect to be able to preclude the person who does own it from selling. They have less security of tenure than an owner and this is necessary - otherwise people would be far less willing to let property. I entirely agree that tenants should be entitled to reasonable security of tenure and that landlords should not be entitled to evict them on a whim, but the permissible reasons why they can currently cut short a tenancy are all appropriate.

If this were teh law you would find large numbers of people saying - nope this is the last straw i will not let out my property if I can never get it back until the tenant decides they want to move on. I will put it on the market and sell it instead. Which would lead to lower occupancy rates - a rented house is likely to have more tenants sharing in it than would reside in an owner occupied house.

Seriously this would be the single most effective way to exacerbate the rental housing shortage.

1. Purchase with what cash? Rent is astronomical versus wages currently so people cannot save for their own place without borrowing a few hundred thousand from the bank. This is a crazy situation that needs to end with perhaps mortgages restricted to 30% of the purchase price.

2. If people are far less willing to let properties then what is the alternative? To sell them and going forward to not buy them in the first place - this will increase supply.

abcabc123123

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

@Seamus: you're such a communist :pac:

Seamus, crusading communist on the landlord accommodation & property forum by day, brutalist right-wing stooge on the solidarity politics forum by night.

DubJJ

'This is a crazy situation that needs to end with perhaps mortgages restricted to 30% of the purchase price.'

Possibly the stupidest statement of this thread so far, restrict mortgages like this and only the cash rich will be able to buy.

Topgear on Dave

seamus wrote: »

Except that small landlord don't think of it as business. They think of it as their personal property. You've just said as much. This makes them a pain in the hole.

Seamus I rented from about '98 to about '16 in a few different places home & abroad.

I dont really recognise your descriptions of landlords.

Most in my experience treated it as a small business. I rarely saw them and they very rarely looked to meet me, as long as the rent was paid there was little need for contact.

Most would give the deposit back with no issue as long as the house was clean, they don't want the drama of fighting with tenants either.

The Student

Assetbacked wrote: »

1. Purchase with what cash? Rent is astronomical versus wages currently so people cannot save for their own place without borrowing a few hundred thousand from the bank. This is a crazy situation that needs to end with perhaps mortgages restricted to 30% of the purchase price.

2. If people are far less willing to let properties then what is the alternative? To sell them and going forward to not buy them in the first place - this will increase supply.

Why not save and then pay a deposit for a property. For a relatively small amount of weekly savings from the age of 18 yr old by the time you are in your mid to late 20's a couple should have a sufficient deposit to purchase a standard home.

Ironically I was looking at the programme "crowded house" last night on RTE and the couple on the programme had net income of €5k after tax per month and were only saving €500. When the financial advisor asked them what they were spending the money on they said they did not know.

While this is a single example, it would not be unrealistic to think that there are others out there in a similar situation. Perhaps if people were actually more finance savvy they could afford a house more than they actually realize.

Yer Da sells Avon

garhjw wrote: »

Keep dreaming or reading your left wing ideology

Rather than that kind of immature, flippant contribution, can you tell me why building enough social housing to meet demand would be a bad idea?

Fol20

Assetbacked wrote: »

1. Purchase with what cash? Rent is astronomical versus wages currently so people cannot save for their own place without borrowing a few hundred thousand from the bank. This is a crazy situation that needs to end with perhaps mortgages restricted to 30% of the purchase price.

2. If people are far less willing to let properties then what is the alternative? To sell them and going forward to not buy them in the first place - this will increase supply.

It will increase supply for people that want to buy and live in their own house, it will mean rental prices for the ones that are left over will increase

The Specialist

Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »

Rather than that kind of immature, flippant contribution, can you tell me why building enough social housing to meet demand would be a bad idea?

1) Who's going to pay for it? Where are you getting the money to construct these houses?
2) Who's going to build it? Where are you getting the amount of builders needed to carry out a project like this?

This line of "build more social housing" is pie in the sky stuff, and the people who trot it out haven't a clue on how to answer either of those questions. I'm sure the magic money tree will see us right though.

Fol20

The Specialist wrote: »

1) Who's going to pay for it? Where are you getting the money to construct these houses?
2) Who's going to build it? Where are you getting the amount of builders needed to carry out a project like this?

This line of "build more social housing" is pie in the sky stuff, and the people who trot it out haven't a clue on how to answer either of those questions. I'm sure the magic money tree will see us right though.

Sure why dont we tax the middle/higher class to oblivion to build these houses :rolleyes:

The Specialist

Fol20 wrote: »

Sure why dont we tax the middle/higher class to oblivion to build these houses :rolleyes:

Unfortunately for these fantasy communists the taxpayer wallet is already squeezed to the limit, and there are much more important things that require funding than "foreva homes" for eternal wasters.

The Student

Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »

Rather than that kind of immature, flippant contribution, can you tell me why building enough social housing to meet demand would be a bad idea?

Simply because we can't manage them. If we could we would not have any rent arrears and we would not have the issues we had in the past with social areas and the associated anti social issues.

This is why councils want to have mixed developments of private, affordable and public housing.

People don't want to buy where social houses are because of the above issues. These may or may not exist but the perception is there. You only have to look at some of the high profile social areas from the 70's and 80's. Eg Moyross in Limerick, Ballymun in Dublin.

Yer Da sells Avon

The Specialist wrote: »

1) Who's going to pay for it?
2) Who's going to build it?

Who paid for it when we did it in the past, when Ireland was far poorer than it is today? And who built them? Don't pretend it's not doable, simply because you're ideologically opposed to it on the grounds that it would kill off a currently very lucrative and wholly unproductive part of the private sector.

Investing in actual assets would be a better use of public money than handing several hundred million euro over to private landlords through the HAP scheme every year. It's not like the average landlord is terribly happy about renting to HAP tenants anyway.

The Student wrote:

Simply because we can't manage them. If we could we would not have any rent arrears and we would not have the issues we had in the past with social areas and the associated anti social issues.

Charge people an affordable percentage of their income, deducted at source if necessary. The Workers' Party has an excellent policy on this. I know, they're Socialists (or 'Communists' if you're so far to the right that any policy that benefits society as a whole, and not just a small number of greedy individuals, scares the crap out of you), but if you could ignore that for a moment and read it with an open mind (if possible).

The Student wrote:

This is why councils want to have mixed developments of private, affordable and public housing.

People don't want to buy where social houses are because of the above issues. These may or may not exist but the perception is there. You only have to look at some of the high profile social areas from the 70's and 80's. Eg Moyross in Limerick, Ballymun in Dublin.

Widening the income base for social housing would remove those potential problems by essentially creating the exact same conditions of a mixed development, albeit without the need for some people to borrow vast sums of money to live there. Not everyone wants to be saddled with a mortgage for the rest of their working lives.

Incidentally, if it was possible for the private sector to provide something along similar lines (i.e. build large amounts of houses/flats and rent them at an affordable cost, with security of tenure included), I'd be totally fine with that too. I'm not ideologically clinging to the idea that there must be a state-led solution.

Fol20

Again where will they get the money for this. It’s all good and well saying they can stop paying millions for HAP but where are they going to go when they allocate the funds to build houses which would taken several years to be processed? 15pc of yourbwage towards rent is laughable. It’s much higher than that for everyone including working professionals. It would be more fair to be closer to 25pc and even then it’s not realistic given current costs to build.

Everything is just a form of self-entitlement where they want something without the hard work that goes with it. Take a look at the trailer for survivor for season 33 that perfect encapsulates millenials vs gen x. 20/30 years ago people got mortgages with extortionate mortgage rates and got by though through hardworking grit. Now people want to have their cake and eat it but doing very little to get it. Why should someone on 100k a year 60hrs a week be paying a ton in tax compared to someone who may not have worked as hard to get to where they are but expect to be equally compensated.

kalych

garhjw wrote: »

That’s not the property owners problem. And they are only a tenant. They didn’t buy the property. The state needs to sort it out but not at the expense of property owners.

I'd be willing to vote to make it a landlords problem. Actually, I think I will email my local TD to push to further get rid of small-time property investors. I'd rather deal with REITs. Thank you very much!

With the attitude you are displaying I see it as a public good.

Fol20

kalych wrote: »

I'd be willing to vote to make it a landlords problem. Actually, I think I will email my local TD to push to further get rid of small-time property investors. I'd rather deal with REITs. Thank you very much!

With the attitude you are displaying I see it as a public good.

Ignorance is bliss my friend. The grass is always greener

amcalester

kalych wrote: »

I'd be willing to vote to make it a landlords problem. Actually, I think I will email my local TD to push to further get rid of small-time property investors. I'd rather deal with REITs. Thank you very much!

With the attitude you are displaying I see it as a public good.

Fine if you're 2 mates or a young couple wanting to rent a 2 bed apartment in a city or large town. Not so good if you want to live in house in a regional town, keep a pet etc.