The Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2017

GGTrek

Links:
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting_a_home/repairs_maintenance_and_minimum_physical_standards.html
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2017/si/17/made/en/pdf

Other requirements for landlords:
"Extra requirements from July 2017
The Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2017 will take effect from 1 July 2017. They specify that:

-Windows that are located above a certain height (1.44m practically every window) will have to be fitted with safety restrictors, in order to prevent falls
-Landlords will have to provide a permanently fixed heater in each bathroom/shower room and to ensure proper ventilation and maintenance of these heaters
-Landlords will also have to provide carbon monoxide detectors and alarms, which must be suitably located"

The bathroom heater requirement is a bad joke, since many apartments and houses built relatively recently do not have them and current building regulations will only allow the installation of vent heaters in the vast majority of cases at an expense that can reach several hundred euros or even go avove 1k if full electric rewiring of the bathroom is required). This government is trying to retrofit building regulations for rented accommodation.
In addition there is another section in the act that will provide "resources" (this might be a promise too far for the current weak government) to local councils to perform a full inspection of every rented property under the remit of the RTB at intervals of four years. These inspections always find something. For example if they find that a socket is not working they will require a full inspection report from a certified electrician which will charge the landlord hundreds of pounds to finally determine that a 20eur socket needs replacement.

This is a double whammy for most landlords since on one side the Irish govvie is capping rents, on the other is requiring additional expenses that cannot be recouped with higher rents.

Absolutely nothing good has been done by Coveney to provide incentives for more private rented housing. This is another big disincentive and pandering to special interests represented by organisations like Threshold.

I am in the process of terminating several tenancies after the AAA rta amendment scare and by July 2018 I shall have only one tenant left under the remits of the rtb and these regulations, I do not want anymore the hassle of long term residential tenants: the sector has been overregulated and overtaxed to death.

utmbuilder

I don't think its an investment opp for small time landlords anymore, hopefully you can find alternative avenues to invest in.

It's a double whammy for renters too. Why is renting so expensive in Ireland? Supply and demand is one element but needless regulations like this which push up the costs to landlords, pushes up the cost of rent. When a new regulation brings in an additional cost to the landlord of even 100 euro, the Landlord will understandably want to recoup that spend - so the rent goes up.

Also, if anything some of these regulations will reduce standards of living, because in bathrooms where there was no heating, now, in some cases, a cheap retro-fitted heating solution will be installed, making a small bathroom even more cramped, or introducing an ugly vent into the wall and the rent will go up a bit to cover the cost of installing it and the tenant now has to pay the extra addition to the heating bill.

Instead of a landlord versus tenant thread lets all unite and say feck off to even new regulations meaning more money being taken from both our pockets.

BsBox

To be honest, most of this sounds extremely reasonable to me.
The safety restrictors are common sense, and quite cheap to install. Assuming there are children in the property, these should already be in place. Many also have the added benefit of acting as a burglary deterrent.
The carbon monoxide alarms are again, common sense, and should already be installed by any landlords with an inkling of responsibility. They can be bought for €18 in the shops, and don't take a minute to install. Cheap and unobtrusive.

On the issue of the heater, the small fan ones that can be mounted on the wall should be adequate, and the units themselves only cost €50. Yes, some rewiring might be required, but €1,000 to get an electrician to run power to a heater on the wall is a bit of a doomsday scenario. With regards to the ventilation, again, any decent bathroom should already be fitted with an extractor fan/wall vent/etc.

BsBox

Deleted User wrote: »

Why is renting so expensive in Ireland? Supply and demand is one element but needless regulations like this which push up the costs to landlords, pushes up the cost of rent. When a new regulation brings in an additional cost to the landlord of even 100 euro, the Landlord will understandably want to recoup that spend - so the rent goes up.

Annual rate of rent inflation in Q4 '16 was 13.5% according to Daft. Even outside of Dublin, the lowest rate to be found was 8.9%.
Please don't proffer the idea that regulation for decent standards of living in rented housing is what's driving the costs up, because the government couldn't possibly throw enough regulations at landlords that would cause such an outrageous increase.
Yes, regulations come that mean properties may have to be altered and money may have to be spent, but this is part of the cost of doing business, and the inflated rates that landlords are pushing on people should more than easily cover for what amounts to some window restrictors and a heater for the bathroom.

Please don't proffer the idea that regulation for decent standards of living in rented housing is what's driving the costs up

I didnt suggest regulations are the only reason but it is a contributing factor.

I could happily live without the microwave. I don't need dual aspect.

What I would like is:
More storage
More storage
and
More storage

BsBox

Deleted User wrote: »

I didnt suggest regulations are the only reason but it is a contributing factor.

I could happily live without the microwave. I don't need dual aspect.

What I would like is:
More storage
More storage
and
More storage

Yes, it's a contributing factor, but quite a small one.
Apologies if it came across as snappy, I just feel like it shouldn't really be put out there that changes in regulation like this are part of the reason landlords are hiking rents so much. The math just doesn't add up.

Assuming an average rent of €500/month for a 2 bedroom flat (this is a low estimate, as houses with more rooms and most units will pull in more rent), a 2% increase for the year would pull in an extra €240, enough to carry out the improvements sought in the new regulations for many landlords in the first year alone.

That still leaves them a mysterious 11.5% rent inflation to blame on the government.

4ensic15

Rental prices are driven by supply and demand. Increasing regulation reduces supply. Landlords just get fed up with being forced to do more and more. They leave the market. Others decide not to enter the market at all. The result is lower supply and higher rents. It is not relevant that higher rents will pay for it, it is just the extreme hassle. Why does the tenant of a bedsitter in flatland, with late opening supermarkets need a stand alone freezer? A 4 ring hob? This messing going on when there are people sleeping in the street and cases of 70 tenants to a house and some homeless paying €10 a night to sleep in a cafe beggars belief.

GGTrek

BsBox wrote: »

To be honest, most of this sounds extremely reasonable to me.
The safety restrictors are common sense, and quite cheap to install. Assuming there are children in the property, these should already be in place. Many also have the added benefit of acting as a burglary deterrent.
The carbon monoxide alarms are again, common sense, and should already be installed by any landlords with an inkling of responsibility. They can be bought for €18 in the shops, and don't take a minute to install. Cheap and unobtrusive.

On the issue of the heater, the small fan ones that can be mounted on the wall should be adequate, and the units themselves only cost €50. Yes, some rewiring might be required, but €1,000 to get an electrician to run power to a heater on the wall is a bit of a doomsday scenario. With regards to the ventilation, again, any decent bathroom should already be fitted with an extractor fan/wall vent/etc.

What you said can be implemented by an owner occupier not a landlord. If council inspector comes for inspection he will want to see that smoke detectors (which I have already got at all my properties btw) have to be installed by a certified NSAI engineer and will want to see report or invoice (approx 200e x installation unit depending if mains wires are there cost could almost double). The same goes for the heating vents. If wiring is not there the minimum (which will be the case most of the time) will be 250eur with ugly wiring running outside walls. However if the NSAI electrician says that having wires outside in a bathroom is not safe a full rewiring inside the walls will be necessary requiring building work and 1k would be the minimum.

This is all fine for middle to top end accommodation where rent will allow you to recover these costs quickly, but for budget accommodation this is killing the business just not worth doing it. Look at how many landlords got trapped at rents between 400 and 700 euros pcm by the rent cap law. A regulation like this one will easily eat up 1 to 2 months of rent, an inspection more than this. If you consider that a landlord is only taking home a max 5 months of rent per year after taxes, expenses and repairs. This new regulations is taking NET rent to 2-3 months per year. In my opinion not worth it for small landlords.

The Irish govvie knows perfectly well about this but as stated in other threads they started a war against small landlords approximately in 2008 and they have not stopped yet.

When tenants complain that rent is high or worse there is no supply look at the accumulation of these types of regulations and it is easy to see why except to the most left leaning people who believe that landlords should invest to provide social housing of great standards at a loss.

4ensic15

Those regulations also apply to owner occupied apartments where there is a management company. More expense for the owners.

Mrs OBumble

BsBox wrote: »

The carbon monoxide alarms are again, common sense, and should already be installed by any landlords with an inkling of responsibility. They can be bought for €18 in the shops, and don't take a minute to install. Cheap and unobtrusive.

On the issue of the heater, the small fan ones that can be mounted on the wall should be adequate, and the units themselves only cost €50.

I'm sorry but I don't see why my all electric apartment with no source of carbon monoxide needs an alarm for something that cannot happen here.

I already have one of those fan heaters on the wall - and can honestly say that in in 9 years I've never used it. It's just a dust trap.

Gumbo

I'm sure a radiator in the bathroom is sufficient?

Samuel T. Cogley

kceire wrote: »

I'm sure a radiator in the bathroom is sufficient?

Have to admit, I just glanced over it but I'm not seeing where it has to be a fan heater either tbh. I'm seeing a very wide definition on Section 6.

Although Thanks GGtrek for the heads up <mod snip>

campingcarist

The housing rental sector must be the only sector where there are new regulations every year. 2015, 2016 and now 2017.

GGTrek

kceire wrote: »

I'm sure a radiator in the bathroom is sufficient?

Yes almost sure it is sufficient, but the electrical regs issues I outlined remain the same. Just to give you an idea you would have similar electrical issues (or probably more) as installing a new vent in a bathroom (except the vapour escape routes for vents):
https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2055803392
Even this would be enough, cheap material:
http://www.jebbtools.ie/bathroom-heater
Problem is: bathroom space. Most current bathrooms are tiny with little space for radiators so realistically vent radiator is only solution for most cases.
The devil is in the details: you will need it installed by a NSAI certified electrical contractor which will charge you a lot to guarantee that the installation complies to all the building regulations (and from experience council inspectors love to apply the regs even more than what the laws allow them to do when they inspect, from experience I had to remind them of the law once, when an inspector got really carried away in its zeal of trying to apply all the most recent building/fire safety regs to an old building), there might be some extreme cases (like protected structures where all the interiors are protected) where it will not be possible to comply. This is the problem when government is trying to retrofit new building regulations only to rented accommodation together with overzealous council inspectors.

GGTrek

campingcarist wrote: »

The housing rental sector must be the only sector where there are new regulations every year. 2015, 2016 and now 2017.

You are overoptimistic, between building regulations, rent regulations, tax regulations, we had changes every single year since 2008.

L1011

GGTrek wrote: »

Yes almost sure it is sufficient, but the electrical regs issues I outlined remain the same. Just to give you an idea you would have similar electrical issues (or probably more) as installing a new vent in a bathroom (except the vapour escape routes for vents):
https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2055803392
Even this would be enough, cheap material:
http://www.jebbtools.ie/bathroom-heater
Problem is: bathroom space. Most current bathrooms are tiny with little space for radiators so realistically vent radiator is only solution for most cases.
The devil is in the details: you will need it installed by a NSAI certified electrical contractor which will charge you a lot to guarantee that the installation complies to all the building regulations (and from experience council inspectors love to apply the regs even more than what the laws allow them to do when they inspect, from experience I had to remind them of the law once, when an inspector got really carried away in its zeal of trying to apply all the most recent building/fire safety regs to an old building), there might be some extreme cases (like protected structures where all the interiors are protected) where it will not be possible to comply. This is the problem when government is trying to retrofit new building regulations only to rented accommodation together with overzealous council inspectors.

I have never seen a *bathroom* without a radiator. Toilets yes, but bathroom/shower room != toilet.

If there was that marked a drop in building standards since the era of house I've lived in/looked at, it probably does need correction by regulation. Most of the newer ones had heated towel rails which functioned as radiators and would meet the standard of a fixed heating appliance.

odyssey06

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I'm sorry but I don't see why my all electric apartment with no source of carbon monoxide needs an alarm for something that cannot happen here.

The exact wording in the statute is:
"Each house shall contain, where necessary, suitably located devices for the detection and alarm of carbon monoxide."

It would have been preferable if the wording has pointed at when it would be necessary... one assumes it means where there are potential sources of carbon monoxide.

The Citizens Information summary also seems to be confused about "combustion". An electrical heater does not combust.
Combustion requires fuel source.

suzilio

Do any of you who are landlords have problems finding window safety restrictors for their 'Munster Joinery' windows? 

Cuddlesworth

suzilio wrote: »

Do any of you who are landlords have problems finding window safety restrictors for their 'Munster Joinery' windows? 

Contact Munster Joinery. They have them.