Why there is so little house building in Ireland

Thats the point! It is worth nothing, it is not even a requirement. Im suggesting that written tenancy agreements are a legal requirement and that such agreements contain provisions for landlords to protect their property - including, for instance, where a tenant destroys property but fails to reimburse that the State can be held liable for the cost of repairs.


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That's the craziest suggestion you've come up with. You want the taxpayer to pay landlrods if their tenant's destroy the place.

You really haven't a clue. What's in your lease as regards cleaning windows or chimneys and keys?
 

Increased demand will lead to an increase in supply. So this is why we need more landlords entering the market. There are going to be a lot of houses outside the reach of FTBs. Without landlords they won't be build and therefore rented.
 
Oh, just in case some landlords ever complain about getting phonecalls from drunken tenants at 3am who have lost their keys - put the responsibility and charges of key and lock replacement on the keyholder, ie the tenant.

This happened to my mother. But she was more than an hour away, she told the tenant to just break in. Then she fixed the lock afterwards. I told her not to answer her phone in the middle of the night.
 
Don't you mean the Taxpayer ? What ever happened to personal responsibility?

Yes, absolutely, the first point of call would be to pursue the tenant for arrears or damages. If the tenant has no means to repay, the taxpayer can step in to compensate the aggrieved party - the landlord. After all, they pay taxes too dont they?
Would you be opposed to such a scheme? Considering the State has indicated its responsibility to provide social housing in the first place.
 
No, but such matters, any others, can be reflected in a justified increase in rents (obviously, by itself, battery replacement would be negligible).
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I was more worried about the tenants than the cost of the battery. You really don't get this. I've had a tenant nearly burn the house down in the last two years. For that one I've now got a mains alarm. Which is what I'm moving to for the rest as I'm going to do substantial refurbishment this year - hopefully.
 
Would you support a criminal conviction in this case?

If a tenant has the means to pay but wont pay I would support an eviction.
If a tenant has no means to pay (say long-term unemployment) I would support state intervention to support the aggrieved party - ie the landlord, until such time as the tenant is in a position to pay again.
 
I was more worried about the tenants than the cost of the battery.

There is only so much you can plausibly do. If tenants are taking batteries out of smoke alarms there is not much you can do. All you can do is show that you take reasonable care by servicing the alarms once a year.
 
Yet one of the few local authority housing developments completed in Dublin in recent years delivered units that cost almost twice that excluding land costs. I'd love to know where they got that €199k figure from, I can only guess it has no basis in the reality of an actual development.
How do newspapers get away with printing such stuff. There is no way I believe DCC can build houses for that if you factor in all costs. And it's a rather neat figure too. With your 199, not going over the 200, like it was Dunnes stores.
 
There is only so much you can plausibly do. If tenants are taking batteries out of smoke alarms there is not much you can do. All you can do is show that you take reasonable care by servicing the alarms once a year.
But I thought you said this would be sorted in your magical written lease ! You know the one I told you was a waste of time in Ireland.
 
How do newspapers get away with printing such stuff. There is no way I believe DCC can build houses for that if you factor in all costs. And it's a rather neat figure too. With your 199, not going over the 200, like it was Dunnes stores.

Media, particularly the Indo seem more and more interested in attention grabbing headlines than the truth.
 
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This happened to my mother. But she was more than an hour away, she told the tenant to just break in. Then she fixed the lock afterwards. I told her not to answer her phone in the middle of the night.

Is this an ideal scenario? I would think not.
Best you have it written out in a tenancy agreement to call a locksmith. Even better, provide the contact details of local locksmiths.
 
If a tenant has no means to pay (say long-term unemployment) I would support state intervention to support the aggrieved party - ie the landlord, until such time as the tenant is in a position to pay again.

Would you hold the same view if the same person threw a brick through the front window of their local Tesco?
 
But I thought you said this would be sorted in your magical written lease !

Im not really sure what you are talking about. If there are conditions in a tenancy agreement that either party are not complying with, resulting in the other party being out of pocket then this may be used by either party as a factor for increasing or decreasing rent in a rent review.
If you agreed to a chimney sweep once a year, which I think is reasonable if you are interested in protecting your property, but you fail to so and the tenant, being concerned about their own welfare and the welfare of their children, ends up paying for a chimney sweep, then this may act as a factor in reducing rent.
 
Is this an ideal scenario? I would think not.
Best you have it written out in a tenancy agreement to call a locksmith. Even better, provide the contact details of local locksmiths.
According to you if she had a written lease there would have been no problem. She could have provided the phone number of the locksmith in the lease too. Why not. You can be sure that particular tenant would have of course phoned a locksmith whose number was in the written lease inside the locked apartment.

I'd best not tell you the story of how she got rid of the Nigerian who was dealing drugs. That only took 6 weeks if I remember rightly.

We locked ourselves out of our house about 5 years ago. Oddly we had to figure out who to call on a Sunday, we didn't have anybody to ring up and bother to do so.
 
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If you agreed to a chimney sweep once a year, which I think is reasonable if you are interested in protecting your property, but you fail to so and the tenant, being concerned about their own welfare and the welfare of their children, ends up paying for a chimney sweep, then this may act as a factor in reducing rent.

I too think it's reasonable to sweep the chimney once a year. Why should the landlord pay for this? Maybe tenant's don't care about their children's welfare. And it's the landlords fault if the chimney goes on fire (happened to one of my tenants - I had to pay the fire brigade one K, now if I'd only had that magical written lease it would have been all hunky dory for me)

Is that chimney cleaning in your lease along with the four times a year window cleaning?
 
Would you hold the same view if the same person threw a brick through the front window of their local Tesco?

???

That is criminal damage you are talking about. Which, if memory serves me correct, is prosecutable under law using services of the gardai, courts etc all paid by taxpayer. Should this not be the case?

If I lose my job, paying PAYE and PRSI the State will cushion the loss of my income through unemployment benefits.
Im talking about landlords, who through no fault of their own, or no fault of their tenants, are at a loss of income because there tenant is unemployed.
As taxpayers themselves, paying PRSI I would be supportive of cushioning the loss of income for landlords that find themselves in financial difficulties as a consequence.

If a tenant burns down a house or damages a house im sure house insurance will cover that. Any criminal damage should be reported to the Gardai to investigate. If the Gardai are satisfied a crime has occurred they should pursue the culprits.
In the meantime, a landlord who pays PRSI, and is at an income loss because of criminal damage, should be afforded some protection by the State in a similar fashion to someone who is at an income loss because of unemployment.
Would you be opposed to such a social provision?
 
If a tenant has the means to pay but wont pay I would support an eviction.
If a tenant has no means to pay (say long-term unemployment) I would support state intervention to support the aggrieved party - ie the landlord, until such time as the tenant is in a position to pay again.

Moral hazard alert
 
Moral hazard alert

I dont see how.
Im only suggesting that where a tenant is unemployed that a landlord who finds themselves in financial difficulties as a consequence would be entitled, as a PRSI payer, to supports to cushion the loss in income.
As with most people, the prospect of a moral hazard will be thwarted by the desire of the tenant to return to paid employment and the landlord wanting full rental prices to be restored.
 
Im suggesting that written tenancy agreements are a legal requirement and that such agreements contain provisions for landlords to protect their property - including, for instance, where a tenant destroys property but fails to reimburse that the State can be held liable for the cost of repairs.
Wow!

So the taxpayer will meet the cost of any damage caused to a property by a rogue tenant. And the best part of this cunning plan is that it won't even require an Act of the Oireachtas - parties can agree to this privately!

Hang on, it gets better...
If a landlord can show that they have been put of pocket by a non-paying tenant, and the tenant has no means to pay then the State becomes a liable party
So the taxpayer will fully underwrite the landlord's investment!

Oh what a wonderful world.:)

Now, where did I park my unicorn? Oh, there it is - under the magic money tree...
 
So the taxpayer will meet the cost of any damage caused to a property by a rogue tenant. And the best part of this cunning plan is that it won't even require an Act of the Oireachtas - parties can agree to this privately!

Sorry my bad, housing insurance will cover that. I was thinking more about income streams from loss of income.
 
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