The eviction ban

Everyone I’ve seen talk about this publicly seems to either be “We absolutely must extend the eviction ban” or “the eviction ban is terrible and unconstitutional”- as usual, there seems to be no one who can see pros and cons to it.

From my POV, it does seem to be mostly cons. Small-time landlords are exiting the market in their droves, mostly because of government interference in everything, from what I can see. It really doesn’t matter whether people on Twitter give out about landlords- we need them if we want rental accommodation. It’s that simple. They should be asking how an environment can be fostered where being a landlord is appealing. Sadly, it seems like it’s too late.

The only pro is that desperate people won’t be evicted for another 6 months, but that’s government forcing small-time landlords to take responsibility for the state’s own appalling failures on housing. It also seems to be impossible to evict people who actually deserve to be evicted.

It’s all just an absolutely desperate state of affairs, and anyone who voted FG in the next GE needs their head examined.

Hefty property tax on dwellings that are empty for more that 4 months of the year in rent pressure zones.

IE Use it for residential purposes and make money off it or sell it to someone that will either rent it themselves or live in it, you can't sit on it.

The VHT as it stands is a joke: less than 30 days for 12 months, self assessed at the basic rate of LPT.

There's 48,000 properties empty in Ireland for over 6 years, that alone is a crazy statistic.

I don't think its the rate so much that's the issue, more so what qualifies a property as vacant.

For example "one" you might be married with two kids (say 10 and 15) and you have a second or ever third property from deceased parents.

You want to sit on those properties for your kids for when they are older, they were inherited between a married couple so there is likely very little or nothing owed on them. Renting is to much hassle, so just leave them empty and say you live in them for 30 days each year and you're exempt from that 3% tax.

For example "two" you have a fund that is banking on the assets (whole block of apartments) gaining 10% value in the next 12 months, Vulture funds are exempt from tax on that 10% increase in the value of the asset (Mr Noonan). If one of those apartments is worth 300k, that 10% is 30k which is more than they would ever make renting it, and they can offload the asset quickly if they need to. Renting actually equates to hassle for these funds, but that was not envisaged when the plans to attract them to come here began just after the crash. 3% tax to these guys might be a big enough hit, but they're still making 7% "profit" on it and the property is still empty. Renting is not their business.

I'd imagine there is ALOT of the above going on. (very hard to prove though) I do know though that, a lot the lights in Capital One come on at the same exact same time every night.

Cleaning up the mess is going to be extremely painful for any government.

this whole mess goes back to no houses being built.

this has massively inflated property values, so people are selling, i mean landlording is about investment and profit, end of

nothing about interference with landlords. Sure those who want to be landlords are getting handsome rents, why sell?

That is completely incorrect. If it was true, nobody would ever need planning permission for one thing.

Darragh O Brien on Newstalk now saying he has instructed councils to buy houses that have tenants facing eviction, 600 in total. So house buyers, bear in mind you might be bidding against the local council for your dream house, guess who has the most money?

Reasonable point. However, would you recommend bidding on a ‘dream house’ if it involved tenants who may not be too keen to move out?

My friend (actual friend not made up anecdote I Promise) recently withdrew from a sale agreed as he became legitimately concerned tenants would not move out and solicitor essentially advised ‘bail out now’’

I don't agree with the eviction ban so don't think it should have been introduced. However the trialling of it for three months so that they can point to it not working doesn't sit well with me either.

A fairly cynical ploy instead of governing and standing up to those demanding it in the media, social media etc. If it's not a good idea now it wasn't a good idea then.

Maybe it wasn’t that common an example and apologies if so. I just meant buying from someone moving out of their house and having to compete with council would certainly seem unfair for those in first time buyer category etc. But where council are being asked to buy in this case includes scenarios where the current tenants wish to remain? Therefore precarious for a potential buyer who wants to be an owner occupier.

If you have a commercial property under a lease, and you want to sell it, you have to sell it with the lessee in-situ.

At no stage was there any rule or law against selling your property or not.

Also, people are commonly forced to sell properties to the State under CPO, or threat of CPO

I think one of the problems is groups representing small landlords lobbying until recently that the big danger to the market was oversupply. It makes sense. The fewer units built the more their rents skyrocket. They were arguing this point as recently as January of last year.

They have changed their tune now but only because the crisis came to such a head that the government was forced to postpone no-fault evictions to prevent mass homelessness.

There are many necessary solutions to the shortage of housing across the market. Some are easier to deliver than others.

But the one thing that must be done, that has never been properly done, is to set a clear and unambiguous overarching housing and planning policy for years to come that gives certainty to providers, whether its State agencies, approved housing bodies, developers, investors, aspiring owner occupiers, renters, bungalow blissers or mom and pop landlords.

It should be a strategic policy that protects against economics shocks and gives everyone putting money into creating homes that the returns will be modest, but certain, that there will be fairness in tenancy and in ownership and that taxation will be on the basis of the business that housing provision is and not on the basis of income tax. On the other hand, the standards required of landlords should be extremely high and very rigidly enforced.

There is a win-win to be achieved in Housing, but it requires massive big brass balls to slay some old sacred cows and change course from the mess we are now in.

If the Government actually did this and provided as house at a reasonable rent to everyone that needed one, private landlords would also complain that their businesses were being undercut by the State.

Nor did they ever intend to do the latter. Hence my cynicism.

Watching prime time tonight was shocking.

One tenant complaining she, her kids and their kids facing homelessness. Not a peep about why are all the kids being had as this seems to only make their situations more precarious. Not a mention of personal responsibility.

Then on to the grilling from the presenter to the minister, "but where are you telling her she should go now on April 1st, tell her where she is supposed to sleep".

I agree it's difficult and wouldn't fancy being in her situation but this is pure cradle to grave stuff if the government running your life for you. To make matters worse then, the government keep importing more people who are entirely dependent on the state. And I'm not talking about Ukrainians, you'd give them a pass with what they're facing.

It would be more likely that the politicians are getting lobbied by property owners to end it. People going on about AG are just those with perpetual paranoid victim mentalities.

Don't forget that a huge chunk of the TDs appear to have multiple properties. Which they are entitled to have of course.

Love how posters here keep saying the streets, the streets.

Lets get one thing straight.

Not one family has spent a night on the streets in Ireland.

End of. Stop falling for the lies.

Landlords have plenty of sway. As illustrated by the billions the State send their way every year. As well as the massive, and undeserved, gift to them whereby they are actually allowed to break a tenancy (a legally binding contract) because they say they need something, or their family needs it. Nowhere else would that be allowed. Imagine you going into work tomorrow and your boss telling you that he is letting you go with immediate effect because he needs your job for his kid. Would that be allowed? Of course not. Imagine signing a contract with a company to deliver something for them, and half way through you are summoned in and told they are cancelling the contract because the manager's relative just lost their job and they can do it instead.

It was a temporary moratorium. It might be brought it again. There is an opportunity now for anyone who was moaning about it to actually sell up and leave it. Most won't. They'll be back on here whinging again next year if another one is implemented.

What is the full story there?

Yeah, there are a list of reasons.

But they cannot evict for one reason and then not do it. If they don't do what they intended to do, they have to offer it back to the evicted tenant. Or else they leave themselves open to a claim.