Utility bills - Landlord scams

G

Genasys

Registered User
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Are all the landlords in the country scamming tenants by having the utility bill ( esb, telephone etc ) registered in the landlord's name? The landlord then usually drops off the bill to the tenants who will usually pay the landlord by cash ( as the amounts are not that large to warrant a cheque or DD ). The landlord is then able to use the utility bill as an expense when preparing his/her year end tax return by offsetting it against rental income. Thus, the landlord is able to reduce his/her tax bill without having ever incurred the cost in the first place.
 
Very unlikely as the landlord would also be leaving himself open to being scammed by a tenant that does a runner. In my experience, tenants usually insist on the ESB bill to be transfered into their name as they would need a utility bill to show banks/insurance cos etc for proof of residence. I'd imagine revenue would look upon paying ESB as part of rental income anyway and he would not be able to claim it as an expense except when a tenancy is not there.
 
I don't know anyone who does this to claim against rental income, but do know of one landlord who did it to prove that the property was his PPR so he didn't have to pay CGT on the gain when he sold.
 
How is this scamming tenants? Whatever about scamming Revenue.
 
any landlord doing this woudl eb extremely foolish. what is to stop the tenant giving notice, then either leaving all electrical items on round the closk and/or phoning the speaking clock i nAustraila or any premium phone line and running up a bill of thousands of euro and finally leaving letting all the bills to come to landlord??
 
I'm aware of at least one landlord who does this. He also has the house split in two and divides all bills between individual tenants. Everything is in his name including waste charges. I agree with the poster who says it's to save on capital gains tax. This guy also asks the tenants not to fill in the census when it arrives.
 
Genasys said:
Are all the landlords in the country scamming tenants by having the utility bill ( esb, telephone etc ) registered in the landlord's name?
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Bit of a damning sweeping statement there Genasys... you may know of a few who do, but it does not mean that ALL landlords are scamming tenants.

ninsaga
 
delgirl said:
I don't know anyone who does this to claim against rental income, but do know of one landlord who did it to prove that the property was his PPR so he didn't have to pay CGT on the gain when he sold.
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Report the landlord to the revenue he has now defrauded the tax payer, the Irish people. This is also known as a crime.

I am sure a simple email to the revenue with his detilas and a brief outline of the circumstances would do.
 

More criminal activity form landlords. I woudl report the person in quesiton.
 
I know a certain landlord that installs esb meters in each Self contained flat - that way he still gets the bill in his name (and probably offsets this against tax) while the tenants actually pop the money in the meters to pay for it also.
but to be fair he does pay for all the refuse charges himself. but the meter is a good way of increasing margin / tax relief if i had a number of flats though..
 
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