Bin charges for rental property - 5 years later

I bought a house in early 2001 which I rented out immediately. I have dropped by the house every couple of months since I bought it to have a look there and pick up any post etc.

I got a phone call this morning from one of my tenants saying that they had got a letter from Dublin County Council this morning saying that they would be putting an orange tag on their bin as charges of 931 had not been paid since 2001.

However I never received any correspondence from the county council over the past 5.5 years informing me that there were any bin charges outstanding. I naively presumed that the tenants were paying the bin charges as they were the electricity and gas etc - it is a condition included in the various leases that they have signed over the years.

Is there anything at all I can do - I cannot recharge the tenants for the amount as they have changed so often over the past 5.5 years with the longest tenant only being there at this stage for over a year. Surely someone in the council should have done something about this before now??

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later!!!

Think it's up to the landlord to pay these - at least they always did in anywhere i lived, given as they owned the property and all. Did you not know that bin charges had been introduced, or were you happy enough to keep a low profile, hoping they'd forgotten about you? Sure why not just increase the rent to pay for it.

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later!!!

Glenbhoy said:

. Did you not know that bin charges had been introduced.

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Yes - I did know these had been introduced. I presume the tenants paid them just like they paid for the gas and ESB. As you suggested, I will probably just increase the rent

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later!!!

Probably paid by Landlord and rent adjusted

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later

can you claim back the tax if you pay the arrears?

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later

It is not the responsibility of the landlord to pay bin charges, it is at their own discretion. The OP did have it as a condition in the lease that the tenants pay the bin charges, but he should have checked this out over the years to ensure that it was being paid by them.

The bills were probably going to the rented address and being chucked in the bin by the previous tenants.

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later

Surely you can't expect new tenents to pay for your previous tenants waste. Legally its a funny one, because it would not fall into the same section as say not paying ESB etc, as the homewner though you are supposed to ensure that waste was disposed of and bin charges are paid. You could contact the waste section and plead your case, say you were assured that they were paying and that this is a shock ,that you are making an effort to recoup the money from them, or failing that just come to a pay by the month agreement.

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later

Isn't it bizarre that it took all of 5 years for the council to send a letter over this? If the ESB or Bord Gais did not receive payment, do you think they would wait 5 years to demand payment? Or continue to provide a service?

I think they will surely have to come up with some agreement with the landlord/lady...they left it so long it could not be addressed to the people who were living there at the time and who were supposed to pay it and now because they left it the landlord will have to pay it all... that seems unfair and its an extremely badly run system if thats the case.

If they missed that payment for 5 years and did nothing, you would wonder what else they are capable of...

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later

Marie M said:

Surely you can't expect new tenents to pay for your previous tenants waste. Legally its a funny one, because it would not fall into the same section as say not paying ESB etc, as the homewner though you are supposed to ensure that waste was disposed of and bin charges are paid. You could contact the waste section and plead your case, say you were assured that they were paying and that this is a shock ,that you are making an effort to recoup the money from them, or failing that just come to a pay by the month agreement.

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If the tenants were told to pay the bills and didn't then its up to the tenants and previous tenants if they were there. Otherwise they simply won't get their bins collected. (And that is unfunny, having lived for 3 weeks without a bin collection due to not yet having set up an arrangement for it). If the tenants are there since 2001 well tough luck, I hope you screw them rightly. If not, well they may well walk if you expect them to start paying the previous resident's bills.

In my experience its best practice for the rent to include fixed rate bills - I prefer it as a tenant. Irish utility companies in practice, however, are very poor at facilitating the rented sector as they either don't provide prepay facilities at a fair price or ask for huge desposits for tenants.

Re: Bin charges - 5 years later

Arrears of service charge are a charge on the property so the landlord will end up paying them eventually anyway. In order to ensure that arrears dont build up again and to ensure that the tenants keep the place clean its probably easiest for landlord to pay the fixed charge. It there is an additional charge per collection the tenant should pay this. The difference with gas esb etc is that they are personal contracts and not a charge on the property so no matter how many arrears the tenant has on these the landlord will never be responsible as long as the account is not in his name.

I had the same problem last year with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown CC. I was told by the Council that The Occupant (i.e. The tenant ) is responsible for payment of the Waste Charges, but in the event that the charges remain unpaid, the Council will just withdraw the service.

What that really meant was the Landlord had to pay, because who can let a property with no Bin Service ? Since then, I check with the Council whether the account has arrears before returning the Security Deposit to a departing tenant.