Madam, – I choked on my porridge when I read the heart-rending article (Property supplement, January 27th) regarding the unfortunate landlords who might have been left in the lurch if the Section 23 tax relief changes had gone ahead.
To cite just one of several tragic examples: there is a landlord in Munster (who naturally didn’t wish to be identified) who has more than 20 properties and no other source of income and could face serious problems if the change had been enacted. And as for the second home tax, I was stunned to learn that if you have your second property divided into several flats or apartments you have to pay the charge for each and every one of them. To top it all, this payment is not even tax deductible.
One can only imagine the wave of sympathy sweeping across the country for these poor landlords from your many readers who are on decreased salaries, on jobseeker’s allowance, on rapidly diminishing small pensions or not entitled to anything at all.
I was so relieved to learn Government is going to carry out an economic impact assessment on this measure before introducing any changes. Strangely enough, I don’t remember the same Government doing that for me when my small public service pension was cut by 6 per cent (and rising, or should I say falling?) as it has had a very strong economic impact on our family.
To quote your article again, I too had what I thought was a legitimate expectation of my pension at least staying as it was when I retired.
Perhaps you could let readers know where they could contribute to a fund for these unfortunate landlords left in the lurch? Myself, I will now go and lie down for a while in a darkened room. – Yours, etc,