Vacant property tax coming

MakersMark

https://www.98fm.com/news/housing-minister-hoping-to-announce-vacant-property-tax-in-the-budget-1346082

Not sure that this will help.

I am certain that there'll be no protection for landlords forced to rent to rogue tenants.

So, landlords at the moment:

Can't choose who they rent to,

Can't raise rents even if they're way below market,

Can't effectively evict non paying tenants,

Can't effectively recover unpaid rent or damages by rogue tenants,

Can't charge a meaningful deposit,

Will soon not be allowed a choice as to whether or not to rent their own property.

Any wonder that rental market backbone landlords of this country are selling up?

Imagine that the above rules were applied to any other sector.

As with everything our government tries to do it will most likely have loopholes and will be poorly policed. There will probably be so many exemptions Holiday Homes, Fairdeal, Short Term Rentals that most people will be able to skirt around it.

The government will be able to say come next election that they enacted legislation to help the crisis while still pushing the blame onto the landlord.

Its crazy that the government can intervene in the rental market impose limits on rent because there is a crisis but when it comes to energy, food and fuel prices which are also in crisis the government do not not want to get involved.

L1011

The DoF have already flagged that this would be ineffectual window dressing; but that has never stopped any Government before.

busy bee 33

Can’t evict a non-paying tenant.

Can’t raise already low rent.

Now you can’t leave a house empty.

This controlling situation is like an anachronism from Soviet Russia or maybe Nazi Germany.

I think I’m separating from my spouse the week they compile the data. I’ll just check my diary 😂

Atlantic Dawn

What will qualify as a vacant house, would it have to be in move in habital condition? Could someone simply dump the toilet out in the back lawn for it to no longer be habital and avoid the tax as they do in Italy?

SusanC10

Will Holiday Homes be exempt ?

Topgear on Dave

They're going to have to make so many exemptions to this it'll be hilarious. How do they even know what houses are empty.

Just off the top of my head.

I'm away for work for 2 months. House empty. Do I pay?

I know a neighbour lives with her partner. Her house is lying empty for years now. I'm sure on paper she lives there. Does she pay?

Topgear on Dave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058247020/vacant-property-tax-coming

As far as I can see if its a good idea on twitter, then they'll run with it.

And folk on twitter want to crack the whip on those landlord bastards and we wonder why there's no rentals. LOL.

airy fairy

So on top of property tax, you've got vacant tax?

My parents house has just gone into probate, it's empty, already paying property tax to keep them off our backs and now they want more?....looks like my 18 year old will have to 'move in' if this is brought implemented.

Topgear on Dave

For sure there gonna be a load of kids sent to "move in" to various places on paper.

I'm sure it'll be easy enough to dodge but the gov wants to be seen to do something, no matter the consequences.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119103421#Comment_119103421

Stay in it every Friday after a night on the p!ss. Thats plenty of use. If anyone complains then ask them would they like to dare turn the key in your main house after a few jars on a Friday night with the wife standing in the hallway with the "What time do you call this?" face on.

Claw Hammer

There is no reason why LPT can't be increased where a person owns more than one house and made deductible from rental income. Existing one house owners unaffected, landlords with occupied properties unaffected and people with idle properties caught.

JimmyVik

Great little country we live. NExt you'll be taxed for breathing - oh wait ....

I love the way they have all the little minions screaming out for increased taxes on other people for all sorts of stuff.

gorse

This is well overdue and should have been introduced years ago. The number of vacant properties is out of line for any normal country. Hopefully it will be implemented properly with consideration for individual circumstances (say 1 year to put affairs in order after inheriting a house), but without blanket exemptions (holiday homes!).

Not sure why everyone above is talking about people being forced to rent? If you don't want to rent or sell, you can pay the tax. 🤔

gorse

'There is no reason why LPT can't be increased where a person owns more than one house and made deductible from rental income.'

Exactly. This has the added benefit of incentivising unregulated cash-in-hand landlords to come into the open.

airy fairy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107965#Comment_119107965

Can you tell me why people should pay tax on a property they own while they already pay property tax on ? Why is it looked down upon when someone owns a property that is unoccupied? As long as the property is clean and being kept presentable obviously. Maybe I want to keep the property for my kids. I can't rent it out because tenants have so many rights I'd never get them out when my own kids would want it.

It's Irish begrudgery imo. No one is allowed have something more than the next.

And thanks for letting me have that year so I can transfer my parents home from probate. It's taken several years to actually step inside the property as the folks died unexpectedly and we had a lot of turmoil to actually get to where we are. Having a gun to my head to pay tax or get rid certainly comes from someone with no empathy.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107965#Comment_119107965

It will also be calculated on a pro rata basis when people are on holidays, including rentals. So, even if you normally live in the house (owner or renter) and you go on holidays for 2 weeks you will be charged 14/365 * daily vacant tax. This is to make it absolutely bullet proof, no loopholes.

spaceHopper

It's all smoke, they aren't enough empty houses to make any significant dent in the housing market but it's a way to not blame the government for building social housing for the last 10 years.

gorse

Your problem seems to be with probate. The obvious solution is that probate needs to be quicker or the clock on the vacant house tax should not start until after probate is completed.

About 20% of the houses around me are empty, yet there is not a single house to rent within a 50km radius. I've watched many of these houses fall into disrepair and some would now need major repairs to make inhabitable. My employer has lost jobs to Dublin (!) because they can't find anywhere to rent here. Hoarding houses is just like any other asset. If shares and investments are taxed, so should houses be. If a person can afford to keep a second home empty for long periods of time, they can afford to pay tax on it, or sell it.

I live beside two empty properties in Dublin 6, both empty for the 11 years I have lived here, each conservatively worth 800k, even in their present run down state. The owner of the properties is in his 80s, and owns numerous properties, appears to have ino nterest in selling or letting the properties. The odd time, he employs a man or two his own age to do some basic maintenance. The direlict building section of DCC, several years ago carried out remedial works on the two buildings, both listed, and since then nothing has happened.

Depressing living beside these houses, suspected source of rats in the area, the sooner the vacant propert tax comes in, the better,

gorse

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108185#Comment_119108185

90k vacant properties, excluding holiday homes, wouldn't make any dent? https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/county-by-county-where-irelands-vacant-properties-are_arid-40787250.html

gorse

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108202#Comment_119108202

Some people seem to need an extra incentive to sell. If there weren't so much hoarding, this tax wouldn't be needed.

hayse

Funding the rock and roll by attacking the working man again. Hard earned money sitting on a idle property is no one’s business except their own.

If you want a house get out and get working for one. Racking up 100 or so posts on boards a day doesn’t entitle you to one.

airy fairy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108200#Comment_119108200

You do realise that people may have no option but to hold onto second properties as they want to hold onto them for children, (house prices to expensive now) but because of the tenant rights, nobody can rent a house out for x amount of years as there no guarantee they'll be able to get the house back for either family to move into or to sell. Government has made it so hard to remove a tenant, going through correct legal procedures, that everyone is either leaving vacant or selling up.

I can't afford to keep a property idle, but between myself and siblings, we divide up utilities, upkeep and property tax etc. It's still cheaper than not knowing you'll have a property let vacant in the event we needed cash flow, or indeed, one of our children needs to use it.

The lack of housing shouldn't be down to people who have more than one house to provide for those who don't have their own property.

Mr. teddywinkles

Whoes paying for bringing all these vacant houses up to a livable standard.

I'm assuming they are mostly in disrepair.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107997#Comment_119107997

But does absolutely nothing for the common scenario where a couple had bought their own houses when single and later moved into one of them together.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108318#Comment_119108318

Three broad options for current owners:

1) Pay the tax and suck it up

2) Renovate the property and bring it back into use

3) Sell to some else and let them do 1 or 2 above.

Mr. teddywinkles

Lovely choices

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108354#Comment_119108354

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108357#Comment_119108357

"Use it or lose it" I suppose. Property is a controlled commodity (for want of a better phrase). So they have to have rules and policies regulating it too.

Ginger83

There will be a huge amount of sons daughters nieces nephews and relatives redirecting post to vacant properties to claim they are occupied on paper.

It's amazing that if a person has a property that they want to keep in the family and don't want to rent they will now be forced to pay a tax.

What next? A vacant car tax? Maybe we'll be forced to allow people to use our cars on the days they are parked up.