Sir, – Your editorial “The Irish Times view on the rental market: deeply dysfunctional” August 9th) offers a very balanced view of the causes behind the mass exit of small private landlords from a market which in normal circumstances would be seen to provide an attractive return on investment. You quite rightly conclude that this “suggests that the problem is wider than just a desire to cash in on high house prices”.
From my personal experience in speaking to a large number of landlords who have left the market or who are contemplating doing so, it is quite apparent why this mass move out of the rental market is taking place. In practice, landlords have effectively had their properties almost nationalised and they are anxious to get out before the Government takes total control. Under the current draconian tenancy legislation, landlords are severely restricted in who they rent to, for how long, at what rent and under what conditions. They cannot query whether the potential tenant can afford the rent or how it will be financed. They cannot refuse a housing assistance payment tenancy even if they are unhappy with the flaws in the system or have had a bad experience with one.
They cannot be flexible with tenants by offering lower rents in emergency or individual circumstances, and if they do, then they cannot restore the original rent when those particular circumstances change. Nor can they pass on increased costs of maintaining the properties.
The current regime rewards the greedy and penalises those who have been generous to tenants. It gives carte blanche on rental levels to new entrants into the market , almost entirely foreign investment funds, while discriminating against established landlords. In many instances current legislation commits landlords under severe penalty to rental agreements with total strangers – people they may never have met and who have been moved into their properties by tenants without their knowledge or approval. This is totally contrary to contract law.
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Current legislation also has severe loss implications in the event of a sale as the property value to a potential landlord is dictated by the frozen rent level. Once again this penalises the owner who has been generous to their tenants. This has been an important factor in properties disappearing out of the rental market. Additionally, the Government cannot be trusted. Landlords who in, say, 2020 or 2021, entered into a legal agreement with the Residential Tenancies Board for a four-year registration at a fee for the period of €90 then found the Government walking away from this agreement in 2022 and demanding annual registration at a fee of €40.
Taxation, although not as important as the above, is also an issue – both the rate and the refusal to allow capital and maintenance expenditure to be written off in the current year rather than over an eight-year period.
Poorly thought-out Government policy is drastically changing the structure of the Irish rental market by driving out the small Irish private landlord who is currently supplying the middle and lower ends of the market and replacing them with high-spec, high-rental, international investment and pension fund properties.
Regrettably and largely unintentionally, our Government has reintroduced the day of the absentee landlord. – Yours, etc,
DES GILROY,
Howth,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Interesting to find Opposition politicians and representatives of the homeless charities suddenly falling over themselves appreciating landlords. In past narratives, those who rented their properties to others were demonised as greedy and exploitative. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET LEE,
Newport,
Co Tipperary.