Excellent article on how important small landlords are and how screwing them over hasn't worked

notahappycamper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307365#Comment_119307365

I just rang the RTB just there, I do not need to wait until the expiry date of the lease as the notice period will go well beyond the expiry date of the lease. I’ll be giving more than minimum notice in any case.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307379#Comment_119307379

That is a BS comparison. Small LL have bough and rented houses to tenants not just in Ireland but across the world. Small LL in Ireland generally rented to the younger section of the population until 2010-12 who mainly want a place to stay while working away from home. They did not wish to buy houses. They also rented to some older single people in a bedsits not ideal but the ending of bedsits coincided with the advent of the homelessness problem.

However because the country was broke from 2010-16 we were not build houses or social houses and this also coincided with a societal change that was happening for longer than that where a larger section of the younger population drifted from being just a couple to having a family.

Small LL ended up providing social housing which many never intended. You rented a two bed house or apartment to a couple and next thing they had one child and then two.

Small LL are exiting the industry like wildfire 7k in the last five year and 20k units. Mainly because of changes in legislation and the inability to get possession of your property in cases of non payment or damage.

The new corporate LL are charging 20% more than small LL. They will only provide housing in large urban areas and mostly in Apartment form

spaceHopper

My father had a house in flats that I now kind of badly manage for my mother. We are in a bind, her health if failing she will eventually need a nursing home. If we sell now she'll get hit with a big tax bill, then if and when she passes away any money that is left will get taxed a at 30%. Now if we keep the house I've to manage in but when we got sell it it's taxed at 30% then we have to weigh up all the constantly changing laws what if we have to sell with tenants there, that would destroy the value of the house, it would exclude families buying it and investors calculate the value based on rental income. But my father had rents low, he's good tenants for the most part.

If there was less hassle and anti LL sentiment from the likes of here and from the Government I's be happy to take out a mortgage to pay the taxes and keep the house as an investment.

What people are forgetting is that the majority of the market is small LLs, while REITs are becoming a bigger part of it. So forcing out smaller LL's is hurting tenants. Small LL's are selling because the fear what is coming.

Also the root cause of this problems is that FF and to some extent FG stopped building social housing then late 90's early 2000's while pumping up a property and banking bubble.

Since 2010 we should have been building more state backed housing and we should have set up a state back bank to fund private building. Insead Noonan under FG opened the door to REITs and FF have done nothing to close it.

As things stand it's only going to get worse, we will be back where we were in the 1800's with overseas LL's draining money out of the country via unfair rents.

Edit it add: All of the tenants we are between 35 to 53, to me this type of renting if for young single people who want independence and to have fun. It's not a sustainable way of life.

Rant over.

pc7

Spacehopper if there is no mortgage on it, just sell up, its not worth the hassle. A bad tenant or whatever SF or coming governments bring in. You could end up needing to sell (if your mothers health goes downhill, it could be a case of having money to be able to keep her in her own home using the money from the sale). You have to pay tax on the rental income so just view the CGT as paying that anyhow.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307626#Comment_119307626

Small landlords don't, in the vast vast majority of cases, supply any housing. They buy existing stock and rent it to others. They might convert the use of that housing from one form (family owned) to another (rented or even short term rental on airbnb). I'm not saying it doesn't have a use, but anyone will tell you from their own circle that they know people renting who don't want to be renting. They want to buy.

Many small landlords are exiting the market now because they can cash out with a decent lump sum due to prices being high. It would be good advice for many to do so! Some will have been landlords since before the last crash, and some will even have been accidental landlords. Regulations are probably an issue for many, but that is just an inefficiency in having a fragmented industry.

The issue of small landlord providing social housing was indeed a ridiculous one. That was caused by incompetency in local councils. Which does not appear to be a rare trait from my experiences! It also pushed up house prices and reduced availablity of rental properties for the general public too.

The analogy is not invalid. You often see on here the "argument" that a previously rented house that had 4 tenants is being sold to an owner occupier who will only live there with one other person etc. That would be no different from someone arguing that it was better with the absentee landlord because instead of one owner on 100 acres, he allowed 5 families plots of 5 acres in return for them working his remaining land. Him owning the land did not create any more land.

spaceHopper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307681#Comment_119307681

If we work it fairly it can generate an income of about 40K after costs. Then you can offset the cost of nursing care against tax so keeping it kind of makes sense. She has savings, her own home and pension income. My father very much wanted to keep it in the family and also I have my own kids to think of, when the time comes they could live there in their 20's can you see them been able to afford rent in 12 years.

pc7

Then you've answered your own query, you'll just have to manage it, would it be worth getting a property company to manage it? you can write off their fee if that helps take pressure off you?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307650#Comment_119307650

First of all you need tax advice. Was the house in joint ownership or in your father name only. If it was in your father's name only it should have transferred to you mother at present day value.

The other easy answer of selling up forgets about tax implications. As well at present it generates an u come that will cover nursing home fees. If sold the residual money left over will be eaten up by nursing home costs.

While regulations are changing I think there is a halt coming because of the exiting of smaller LL's. Every dog has his day.after all.

You will have to weigh up all tax implications. Remember as well for yourself if you carried out improvements there is a chance it could improve the yield while sheltering and income against tax.

Tow

The government know they have pushed the anti landlord rules too far. As Leo says 'one person's rent is another person's income', and all the foreign investments do is remove money from the Irish economy.

I also would not worry too much about SF, when push comes to shove they will probably not be much different from FF/FG. Their leader is after all the privately educated, TCD graduate daughter of a builder/developer. If they do go mad and ruin the country, owing property will be a better investment than most others.

spaceHopper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307789#Comment_119307789

Thanks for the advice I think folks here are right I probably need to talk to an accountant. The house was in both their names so there was no CGT to be paid. As for improvements, it needs doing up but under current RTB rules / laws a tenant can appeal the rent set but when the rent fall behind the market there is not way for the LL to correct it. So investing in the house is not going to any extra income

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309157#Comment_119309157

If the house was in both there names I think ( an accountant can confirm) you mother inherited you father's share at its present value. She should only have to pay capital gains tax on her share.

If you carry out major improvements. Major improvements can be either increasing the Ber rating by 3 points below D rating( which I imagine your building is) or reconfiguring the building.

Check as well as your are a multi unit rental, you may be able to leave single units vacant for two.years and reset the rent to market rates.

If your building is F or G rated you could get to C/ D rating by upgrading insulation, doors and windows, installing a heat exchanger and changing the electrical heaters. As well making sure when the cert is being done that the right bulbs etc in place.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307379#Comment_119307379

Ok- if thats the spin you want to put on it....

I'd be reluctant really to get into any conversation here based on logic. Answer back will probably involve small landlords being like Putin or Hitler......

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309731#Comment_119309731

You can tell us how many housing units there are in the country that you supplied - i.e. that would not have been built had you not done so yourself?

There is nothing wrong with outbidding someone else on a house and renting it out. Don't kid yourself though that you have somehow "supplied" a house. No more than that 19th century English landlord "supplied" farmland to an Irish peasant. There would be a tiny minority who built a house and later moved and rented it out or whatever. But most "small landlords" just bought already built houses.

My post appears to have touched a nerve yet you were not able to counter it, other than try some hyperbole about Putin and Hitler

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309791#Comment_119309791

That's just what Putler and Hitlin would say...

Dav010

Delete: my mistake.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119310759#Comment_119310759

I think his humour/joke went over your head!

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119310799#Comment_119310799

Ah, sorry, didn’t read the preamble.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307682#Comment_119307682

It feels like you’re arguing over a semantic difference that isn’t really important. Small landlords provide a housing service, not housing. People colloquially say that they provide housing and, in most cases, they don’t care about the fact that they don’t build houses, that’s not what they’re talking about.

That rental service is still a vital one for the economy. Of course there are people renting who want to buy and there’s a tension there but that just points to the lack of stock, not that small landlords are somehow evil.

Now that the number of landlords is falling, the number of rental properties available is falling so it’s harder and more expensive than ever to rent somewhere.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119311827#Comment_119311827

What would be your opinion of large - either public or private - bodies coming in and block buying new developments as soon as they are complete in order to rent them out?

Should, perhaps, there be more financial incentives to attract in large funds to come in and provide that vital service to the economy?

Jaysus_1984

Unable to quote the quote by grumpypants, apologies.

Instead of reducing to 833.33, the rent would probably jump up to 2200, to cover tax, mortgage, insurance and make a profit.

But the idea is good, if the cap for 0 tax is in the range of 20k. That will cover average mortgage costs of up to 1200-1300, plus insurance and property tax, assuming utilities are paid by the tenant. The alternative in this case, to ensure the same returns from the rental, would be to hike the rent to 37-40k annually, which is a lot, even by todays standards (I think...?).

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309791#Comment_119309791

Every single property I rent would not be there if it wasn't for my family members. The properties were in massive disrepair and or used for different purposes. I personally am repairing a property and increasing the number of bedrooms.

Having upgraded the insulation the properties they are a better standard to the houses for sale in the areas. There is also regulation on rental properties that is different from private homes.

To show how it is nothing like absentee landlords is the fact landlords have to repair and maintain the property. You pay for a service with rent. So every landlord provides something that wasn't there before. You can have your belief all you like but it doesn't mean it is not easily dismissed as inaccurate.

If it was not for small landlords many buildings would have collapsed. You may not have been around when Dublin was full of boarded up buildings and the government was encouraging small investors to bring these buildings back into use. As a reward for decades long service providers the government and the public like you want to punish them. You really are looking at the rental market from only one period of time with no memory of the history.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320556#Comment_119320556

You took the bait.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320556#Comment_119320556

Actually, absentee landlords built and managed estates. Laid out fields and drains.

Well, forced their tenants too. But their entitlement to claim credit for that is probably a little higher than your entitlement to claim credit for "repairing a property". Unless you are doing it with your own hands and it needs a skillset that nobody else has, you are likely merely directing others to do the work. Which is what the 19th century, and before, landlords, absentee or not, did.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with what you are doing. But you are just doing what they did, except on a smaller, less successful, scale. If you could, no doubt you would increase your "portfolio".

You are deliberately misrepresenting the reason why there used to be ruins and boarded up buildings in Dublin. Either that or you don't know. That was a deliberate tactic to allow developers (large and "small" - possibly same scale as yourself) to be able to demolish buildings.

Let's be honest and stop with the fantasy that all landlords are somehow performing a civic duty to the conservation of architectural heritage. Most "landlords" here bought a brand new, or fairly modern, already built house.

"decades long service" - like those 19th century landlords. Managed to get possession of property back in the day and succeeded in living off it, and the backs of others who needed it, for a long time. The longer the better! Some of the families of those landlords probably provided centuries of "service" too!!!!

Liam O

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307650#Comment_119307650

Unless she's already given you gifts of over 335k in your life then you won't have to pay a large tax bill when she dies. It'll be 33% of anything above that threshold. In return you are getting a huge amount of potential benefit from the value of the property. Any tax could also be offset if you had any siblings who could be included in the will though that could lead to some arguments. Some life assurance plans will pay out the tax bill too so find out if she has anything like that.

If she sells now she gets a tax bill but also a huge amount of money on top of it, so not really much to rant about there, can't have it both ways 🤷🏻‍♂️

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320632#Comment_119320632

I am personally doing the work and have done so all my life. Even if I pay somebody else to do it I AM PAYING not just directing them. Nobody is in servitude to me and people do not have to rent from me to survive

The government made private owners run down their properties? That is nonsense. Nobody in my family knocked down a property with one exception where they knocked down a warehouse to build an apartment block. According to you they didn't provide extra housing. The derelict properties were because the owners had no money and interest rates were very high to borrow. Landlords took the risk to buy and repair the property thus creating housing that was not there. You want to deny the work done that saved a lot of property

I never mention civic duty and said provide a service which they did and continue to do so. I know a lot of landlords and most didn't buy new properties so I disagree with your claim most landlords bought new. Very simple to go to areas that are known to have lots of tenants and the are not new buildings. Drive along North Circular road and check out how many old houses are rented. Traditionally it was large old houses that were split and rented. You seem to only be looking at the market over the last 15 years.

Landlords bought their building not given them by the government in power. It is patently ridiculous to compare tenant farmers treatment to modern tenants given a tenant can just stop paying rent and not get evicted for 2 years and never paying the rent.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320783#Comment_119320783

Same as how the peasants didn't have to rent land from their landlord in the 1840's. Sure that landlord was providing a service to them by allowing them to rent it. Not everyone was a tenant farmer. They could have chosen to do something else or sure they could have chosen to buy their own land - eh?

In the same way that you are going on about your family property, it was also that landlord's family property. In the same way that you appear to by implying that your family were somehow in a position to make themselves capital rich back in the day. You appear to be talking about having landed in your current position decades back........that is exactly the same as how the 1840's landlord ended up with an estate of tens of thousands of acres.............how many generations of renters should fund you and your descendants because one of your family was able to grab themselves a piece of capital back in the day?

By the way, how qualified are you to be doing all this conversation work? Are these fabulous historic buildings you saved in inner city Dublin listed? Usually such works need to be carried out by specialist conservationists.

In the 1840's, many tenants also stopped paying their rents. A lot of the poor unfortunate landlords at the time went bust. (No doubt you would have sympathy for them). Various Land Commissions were brought in later to help to manage the dispersal of those now uneconomic estates.

Ultimately, if you cannot manage having a non-paying tenant then you should not be in the business. Such inefficiencies end up costing us all.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320881#Comment_119320881

Translation, you want someone to pay for your housing because you're unwilling to work for it.

You get free housing from the Govt, if thats the route you want to go down.

Someone's inability to afford the latest iPhone is not the same thing as famine.

Ray Palmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320881#Comment_119320881

My parents grew up in council houses along with their siblings. Their parent grew up in tenements. You make a lot of assumptions and you are factually wrong. I studied to be a civil engineer and you do not need specilaist skills to do lots of work but what do you know about construction? I never claimed to be conserving properties but that is you and your assumptions

A tenant not paying rent that they have money for is a thief and I have experienced those who would spend their rent allowance and not pay their rent. Tenants laugh in my face as they weren't going to pay their rent and there was little I could do legally. You don't care and I get that but then I don't care about your views and importantly

Go read some actual history and you will see you are just not correct and have a distorted view of history pushed by the ever hatred of the English

http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/ireland/ire-land.htm

After that you can start living in current times and stop going on about 150 years ago

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119321021#Comment_119321021

Ironically, the inefficiencies in the system are merely a subsidy to the rent seeking (economic term) whingers. "Small landlords" moaning about how they can't manage and looking for the system to prolong those inefficiencies on their behalf.

By the way, I doubt very much I'd be needing you to pay for anything for me dude. I couldn't imagine myself lowering myself to the type of place you could likely afford!

Not sure why you are going on about iphones. Perhaps you are just throwing out random phrases because you actually don't have a response to the points which maybe hit a bit too close to the bone? I'll wait for something about "liberal" or "woke" in your response.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119321051#Comment_119321051

I cannot ascertain what you appear to think that your irrelevant link is saying that supports your position as merely a less successful version of those 19th century landlords. You are fully entitled to aspire to those things. You buy your house, then you can rent it out to the person who needs it. That 19th century landlord also bought his estate in one form or another - either with cash money, or with loyalty, or with service and they were also able to rent it out to the person who needed it. You are providing the same service as them and I'm not sure why that realisation appears to upset you so much. It's just fact.

Tenants who don't pay you rent are not thieves. This is basic 101. If you think that they are, and if the problem is so so common, then please point to any single court case or newspaper report of a tenant being convicted of theft purely for not paying rent. There isn't because they aren't thieves. You have given them permission to take or use something. That they don't give you something in return is not, in and of itself, a criminal matter.