Excellent article on how important small landlords are and how screwing them over hasn't worked

To take home 10k after tax a landlord has to charge 20kish. So any landlord charging under the 1700 a month mark would benefit from this.

Even at 12,000 tax free you would have properties that rent now for 2000 able to rent at 1000. And still leave the landlord better off.

The ability in the UK to send in the Court Bailiffs in to remove problem tenants/mortgage holders would go a long way to reducing costs for both landlords and banks. It is the main reason mortgages are currently more expensive in Ireland then the rest of the EU.

i would disagree. Most of the small LL left in the last few years and it was unnecessary since mainly what they wanted was to be treated somewhat fairly. Politics was played for one side which would prove to be a short sighted approach. Younger ppl would find themselves in a better position if the government had not pandered to the easy win pro tenant stuff of the last few years. The large scale handing over of property to faceless corporation was not inevitable - it should have been stopped.

its not an attractive investment. Most of the small LL left were not investors. I ended up a small LL and only owned the house I was renting while renting elsewhere. Alot of ppl I know instead of trading up used the property as a sort of pension. I dont know many people who bought to invest. The ones I do know fit your age profile though in that they are 60 plus. these were not one property chaps though. often 2 or 3 properties and one guy owned 6 properties. Alot of them have very ordinary jobs and just happened to be born at the right time and not make a life somewhere else like alot of there school friends did.

What I lament is ppl like me would have stayed on only for gov intervention and I am not a greedy f8cker niether.

The point I am making is that the older people with 2 or 3 properties bought them years ago and when the sell they are not being replaced by a new generation of small time landlords.

People in their forties were no older than mid 30s when the musical chairs stopped. There hasn't been funding available for buy to let investors for nearly 15 years. The older LLs are dropping out and there are very few taking their place. 20 years ago a person could build up a small portfolio in their 30s and 40s. That hasn't been possible since. Those who expanded in the final years of the Celtic Tiger crashed out in the downturn. There are still receiver sales of those loans.

Apologies don’t have time to read the article - is something actually changing? Current taxation is crazy 😝

The problems:

- lack of supply

- unfair & one sided legislation

- specifically a legislated for inability to deal quickly & efficiently with bad tenants

- excessive red tape & administration

- unallowable expenses & tax treatment

- lack of incentives to rent / continue to rent

- preferential treatment of overseas investment funds over Irish taxpayers

- lack of supply, lack of supply, lack of supply....

The 'solution' provided by gov:

- even more unfair, one sided, overly bureaucratic legislation, multiple changes to this legislation & more added costs in those providing rental property

The outcome:

- Irish based (small) landlords selling up & leaving the sector in droves

- less supply in the rental sector

- less properties to let & an even more dysfunctional market

Basically, the government has stupidly punished the existing providers of 50% of the housing needs of others (i.e. small Irish landlords), for a basic lack of supply that the government, banks & market forces are responsible for. The media has been a populist cheerleader in this punitive legislative frenzy.

Crazy stuff tbh.

I don't think the landlords "want fair regulation where landlords are not responsible where the government should be.".

Id say a major issue is that the non paying of rent or destruction of property has poor controls so the landlord ends up footing the bill. The renter should be held responsible and found accountable within a reasonable period of time (if they are responsible). If so, they should not be able to abscond scott free or stay in a property for months on end for "free".

Small landlords are unable to take that risk so exit the market. I was looking at renting as an investment possibility years ago. It wasn't remotely worth the risk back then so I went into shares. My return has been much better, reliable and less risky with no huge headache or maintenance.

But increased supply which could bring rents down is seen as competition and therefore opposed by small landlords.

How on earth does a small landlord have any influence on supply of rentals.

In isolation that makes sense. However when you combine it with rental pressure zones it does not. If the landlord reduces their rent to benefit from this, they can never increase rents again. Firstly because increasing would make the whole rent taxable (not just the amount over the limit) and secondly because they are capped to inflation increases. So if the government ever pull the relief or reduce the limits (both very likely at some point in the future) the landlord would find themselves with a massively below market rate rent which was fully taxable.

Also, the unattractive rental return would also mean that the only sale possible would be to an owner occupier, which limits the number of potential buyers which reduces the value of the property.

If the government ever acted on Sinn Fein's calls to ensure that properties must be sold with sitting tenants that the value of the property in this case would be terribly reduced because of the massively below market returns.

Honestly, I can't see many landlord choosing to avail of this if it came in. At least not ones in a rent pressure zone (or who anticipated being added to a rent pressure zone).

In any case, I'm not sure landlord have a genuine complaint about the taxation of rents. Landlords real concerns is not the taxation of the rent, but rather the fear of not being able to get rid of a bad/non-paying tenant. I think most small landlords would much prefer an effective and speedy resolution mechanism that would allow a non-paying tenant to be quickly and cheaply evicted, than tax reductions.

What lobbying?

You seem to be implying that something that hasn't happened is what's forcing up rents and reducing supply. That makes no sense.

It needs to be opt-in. So if you don't want to do it, if you are worried about RPZ or you have 4 properties, you just stick with the normal rent amount and pay tax on the lot. I agree with the evictions part. In the UK you go to court in a matter of weeks, it is cheap, the court appoints people who have authority to go and reclaim the property.

There is actually a TV show about them on one of the UK channels. I watch it. The boys turn up and make sure the home is secured. Very often it is a mess but at least the landlord gets it back in a few weeks. Not years.

It is to pay for the RTBs new computer system.