Finding a HAP landlord

Probably a stupid question but what happens if the property doesn't pass? Does the tenant have to move out if the owner cant afford the work?

Presumably the owner would be in breach of some rules if he continued to let the property.

In theory, the council will give the LL a few months to fix the issues, and if they don't after the deadline, the HAP payments will be cut-off. Another stupid aspect of the HAP program imo, since in theory you can have a needy tenant who is fine with the accomodation they are in, and who will now have to pony up the dough to pay for it themselves, or else find themselves facing eviction.

In practice, since this policy is so dumb and unworkable (a Journal article from 2017 reported that the vast majority of HAP inspections in Dublin failed), you may end up with some housing officers who will just continue to let it slide and let the payments continue to avoid having someone go homeless. However, this is a bit of a crapshoot and will depend on both the authority, and the staff member looking at it inside that authority.

The way this should be done in a proper run department.

The landlord agrees on a lease with the tenant subject to HAP inspection.

HAP inspector calls out and does the inspection before the tenant moves in.

Checks fire certs and tax clearance certs from the landlord

Get your report from inspection, then both landlord and tenant know where they stand then.

If it's a few minor things let the tenant know it will be sorted in a few days, if it's major then it's back to the drawing board.

This is just an example of the way things should be done, but will it be done, will it fook, they would rather find some other ways to screw the small landlords while their buddies in the big REIT's do what like and screw the taxpayers for 100's of millions every year.

Yes, tenant is liable if Council stop paying. (Council can retracted HAP if they find Tenants circumstances change for example)

BTB

Yes, i see how the council could change the subsidy if a tenants circumstances change, eg new job etc.

But, the hap subsidy is awarded to the tenant and councils only facilitate the tenant by paying the LL on their behalf, there's no contractual/ legal relationship with the LL.

The tenancy agreement is already RTB registered and tenants are obliged to pay rent due on time.

Then along comes the council inspection after 9/12 months and the property doesn't pass, so the council stop paying the tenants money over. The tenant gets into rent arrears and gets a notice to quit.

How can the council stop the tenants subsidy because of the failure or inaction of the landlord? The tenant has no control over that.

Can the information provided by the inspection department of the council (which is gdpr of the owner) be shared with the hap section (which is the tenant's gdpr with the council) and then used to stop the tenants entitlement?

Surely the works needed by the owner are a completely separate thing to be handled /pursued by the enforcement section and have nothing to do with the subsidy that was awarded to the tenant?

Would a tenant have a case to insist their payments continue because their circumstances haven't actually changed.

Imo, in a properly run department, there wouldn't be inspections for HAP tenancies. If a place is fit to live in and meets the normal building and safety regulations, then it's fit to have the rent subsidised. In the rare case that it's in such a bad state that it's deemed unfit to live in, then it should be pulled from the market entirely and LL should not be allowed to rent it to anyone until issues are resolved. There's no reason a place should be good enough for someone who pays their own rent, but not good enough for someone who gets it subsidised.

Would the council expect their own direct tenants to leave a property if there was an issue with something that needs work, ie is every council house in the country right up to date with the latest building regulations?

If they are, that's fair enough, maybe other posters know about that.

But if a hap tenant has been approved for support, how can the council treat direct tenants and supported tenants in privately owned property in a different way?

If a tenant comes to me within the first few months saying they want to switch to HAP after convincing me they're stable, I'll serve notice before this spills into part 4. If they're lying about this, who knows what else they'll do as time goes by!

I'm a landlord, and my tenant is an immigrant with a fairly stable job, so I haven't been through the HAP thing myself. But, when I started looking into renting my home out, I took a fair bit of advice from other landlords, just to understand the pitfalls and red flags to watch out for. HAP was one of the biggies, everyone advised me to steer clear, but be very careful to not say anything about it.

Reasons:

1. If the tenant stops paying the council, they stop paying you - I see this as a risk with any tenant who defaults on rent.

2. Almost impossible to evict - probably true for any tenant anyway...

3. The inspection. There could be a list of changes needed running into tens of thousands of euros to fix. One example - the extractor fan and light have to be on separate switches in the bathroom. How it could possibly make the tenants life worse if they're both on the same switch is something I will never understand, but whatever. There are many such unreasonable expectations a property is expected to meet, which a 30 year old house will never meet.

Another bit of advice was to keep 1 room for your use, never rent out the whole house. Make it a licensee situation instead of a lease agreement, so there is no part 4. In the 4 bed house, only 3 bedrooms are rented. The rest is deemed "common area" and one bedroom is reserved for my use. I don't really use it, and just let the tenant get on with their lives unless there's a problem that needs fixing, but having this there gave me some control over the house if things hadn't worked out.

I was also told its better to rent to immigrants (especially indians) because they usually come over with secure/sponsored jobs which by definition, have to meet a minimum income level. They're also generally well educated, so less likely to be antisocial, would keep a low profile, take good care of the house and be considerate neighbours. All great points in tenants.

All of the above is unfortunate, but with the laws skewed against landlords the way it is, threshold advising non paying renters to overshold, and evictions taking years in some cases, I'd advise any other landlord the same way too!

While HAP is a pain it is not as bad as some make out. Be sure of the present rental situation LA's are no longer stopping HAP payments at s whim. In general they now chase the tenant for there unpaid portion if it happens. As well while electrical certs are a red line issue most other issues are not. If a LL carried out 79-90% if the requests but 1-2 are not feasible then generally most inspectors will not nitpick over those 1-2 issues.

There is not as such a fire cert, what there happens is that a certain minimum fire safety requirements are required, a fire blanket in the kitchen mounted on the wall, smoke alarms that are working and less than ten years old and carbon monoxide alarms wherever there is a gas or solid fuel fire.

They require window restraints, on windows that are not at ground floor level. Bugbears to LL are looking for vents in houses build before these were the regulations. Cooker hood vents where it may take major structural work to implement. Recently saw a request for one in an old stone farmhouse. The ceilings are low(7'3'') which means there is no area above to fit a vent pipe and the vent would need to go through a 2' stone wall. It's not going to happen There is a special charcoal filter in the extractor fan. There is no obvious cooking smell in the house.

Technically there are all minimum rental standards are not just applied to HAP tenancies but are not enforced accross the private rental sector yet. In other words the LA are enforcing on one they are involved but not policing the wider private rental sector

Yes, but I could move into the room for a few months, making it my full time residence, if it turned out that the tenant wasn't what he claimed to be during the viewing process. They can't stop me from moving into a room reserved for my use, or kick me out when the signed agreement clearly states that they only have the use of their bedrooms/ bathrooms and the remaining part is to be shared with me, and that I would be staying there from time to time. It can't be enforceable that by staying away from my home for a few months and living elsewhere, I forfeit the right to enter it?!

And once I move there, I can serve notice if it turns out they tried to trick or deceive me into getting HAP when its clear that my house wouldn't pass the inspection. I'm not going to spend hard-earned money trying to make my 1990s house meet the 2020s standards - its a ridiculous expectation from the government. If they (the government) want us to meet these standards, let them pay for it. They certainly take 45% of my earnings every month, and I don't see too much return!

Anyway, thankfully it didn't come to that.

Yes they can and they will if the RTB and revenue find out about it lol.

The property has to be your primary residence at the time you signed the agreement in order to claim licencee agreement.

You’re within your rights to reserve a room for yourself in a rented property, but your tenants will still have full tenancy protections.

You can only avail of the licencee agreement from your primary residence, you can’t just decide to switch residence once they’re in. In order to do that you’d need to scrap the current contract and start over as licencees.

WTF would you go through that sh!the. You are still on dodgy ground. You can hardly do that each time the property is relet. And even if you do the RTB may decide you are bending the rules and force you to allow there intervention anyway.

I can see where you’re coming from but I’d still caution you not to underestimate the Revenue Commissioners and RTB.

They are well wide to every trick in the book. (No matter how valid the reasoning behind it)

They can find out your primary residence via Census data for one.

You can’t claim two different properties as your primary residence on the census form.

And which property are your bank accounts attached to?

driving licence, passport etc?

Its not just as simple as moving in to the rental property for a few weeks before taking in new tenants.

Truth be known, it’s probably better off for a small time LL with just one property, not to let it out at all.

And instead legitimately take licencees into their own home to rent rooms.

Tax free up to 14K, versus being taxed 50%+ on renting a whole property.

No problem removing a non paying licencee, versus battling for up to 2 years to get a non paying tenant out of a whole rental unit.

And if a licencee smashes up the place, you just call the Gardaí and have them turfed out there and then.

versus having to go through the RTB to have them removed and then they walk away free and easy to do the same thing to someone else.

I have no gripe whatsoever about your reasoning, every small LL in Ireland is in the same unprotected boat trying to find some way to protect ourselves.

But the plain fact is, the laws are against us maintaining any kind of protection.

The deck is stacked in favour of the tenants.

Hence small LL’s are getting out.

There are these licensee agreements which call out which part of the house is available and which is off limits, and like you said, detailed rules about whatever you'd like to specify. To be honest, like @YipeeDee said, multiple licensees is more straightforward than dealing with tenants who hold all tge rights!

What I saw when I was looking to move to Dublin city center at one point last year was that most of the apartments to rent were for 6 months.

Basically I was told that I could have the apartment for 6 months and I would be given my notice coming up to that.

I guess you could do that with rooms too.