Govt to do 'everything' to prevent evictions - McEntee

The idea was that it wouldn't be social housing. They are already interfering in the private rental market so why not actually do something helpful in the private rental market.

Landlords are selling, buy off them with tenants in situe and use existing private management companies to manage the private rentals, we already have controlled rents etc. so it's very straight forward for the government.

We will hear 'oh but the government shouldn't be getting involved in a private market' - but they are and in a much more heavy handed manner

The problem with the eviction ban is two fold.

First it prevents temporary new supply, this had dried up anyway with the changes over notice length and all new leases were unlimited duration. As well LL with property seriously below market rates were not willing to take the capital gains hit on the sale.

The government's refusal in the budget to give any sweetener to smaller LL with 1-2 properties is coming back to haunt them big time.

Admittedly the accidental LL that were caught after the last recession are starting to exit wholesale as they often have little or no CGT liability. However a lot of LL with 1-2 properties that have below market rents were starting to sell up as well. Too much regulation and everything taxed to the hilt and maintenance costs gone through the roof. You have situations where the return on the houses compared to the capital value is 1-3%.

I am not sure if the government is thinking like you posted. That takes intelligence. I do think it's a knee jerk reaction. There will be side effects. As tenant's leave properties LL's that were not thinking about selling will now seriously consider this option. More will just leave property va ant for 6-12 months or longer to see the lay of the land.

The bigger issue is that those that have served notice will not definitely be looking to evict next March and you will have a tsunami of evictions. This could lead to calls to extend it. Then we are looking at a court case.

If I had served eviction notice due to ecpire I would be looking at starting the legal process now so that there could be no extension of the hiatus on evictions.

The IPOA have stated they are looking at a legal challenge.

Regardless of whether it is successful or not they are pretty much obliged under their charter to legally challenge it.

It is good to have a debate on this and hold government accountable.

That's a good point, because you have tenancies expiring naturally as people buy property, move in together etc. etc. and those will be sold from the market.

But that may be irrelevant to our politicians who are acting with an election on the horizon and only care about the short term issue of landlords leaving.

Depressing but likely true.

Like I said my read on it, I’m not a lawyer suppose we’ll let it go to court and see what happens, but this one of those damned if you do, and damned if you don’t scenarios

If you want cheap rents in this country, rent defaulters musts be evicted to free up the properties for someone else.

If you want cheap houses, mortgage defaulters must be evicted.

Because councils will outbid private buyers.

First time buyer, oops, you can't have this. The council bought it.

Average income buyer, oops, you can't have this. The council bought it.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Policies can be changed. It's foolish to drive small landlords out of the rental business.

Isn't that what the PRTB are supposed to do? To regulate the rental industry? Improve the vetting procedure by the PRTB rather than putting the taxpayer on the hook for a fortune.

It's not the fault of the landlords that there's poor vetting and I think kneejerk actions won't add one single house to the supply and may actually push up the price of houses.

You don't seem to think too deeply on this.

Yeah they could get rid of the people managing the rent supplements, but then they will have to hire people to manage the properties even if they subcontract the actual servicing and maintenance of the properties.

And then you talk about regular inspections which means more inspectors.

So where exactly are the cost savings?

Also where does the council come up with all the loot to buy all these houses?

BTW i think councils or more correctly national housing body should be building massive amounts of housing and not just for social welfare recipients either.