Dublin City Council plans to offer its stock of almost 16,500 council flats, valued at about €3 billion, for sale to its tenants.
The Dublin city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, confirmed yesterday that a legal solution had been found to an anomaly which allows tenants of council houses to buy out their homes, while tenants of the flats complexes are not permitted to do so.
Proposals to sell council flats to tenants in the late 1980s and early 1990s were dropped because of legal difficulties with assigning control of public areas to private property companies, as is the case in most private flats complexes.
Now, however, the council has developed a solution to the difficulty, whereby it will remain as the management company.
This option allows the council to continue to fulfil its statutory duties to its tenants in maintaining public areas, while owner-occupiers would pay the council a management fee, as happens in the private sector.
The scheme provides for the flats to be sold to the tenants at a discount of up to 30 per cent on the market value or 3 per cent per year of occupation. These arrangements are similar to those applying to council houses.