Council tenants allowed rent out rooms for up to €14,000 a year tax-free

This doesn’t feel right.

Council tenants are now allowed rent out rooms in their houses to others pocketing up to14k a year tax free.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/council-tenants-allowed-rent-out-rooms-for-up-to-14000-a-year-tax-free/a1925403909.html

Pawwed Rig

No it doesn't feel right at all. Why do council tenants have spare rooms that they can rent out? Council accommodation should be provided as needed. If they have spare rooms they are getting more than they require and that property should be allocated to a larger family.

Nothing in this country that has any government involvement makes any sense.

FutureGuy

Haha. That's hilarious. But completely unsurprising.

T-Maxx

This thread will be locked soon.

Juran

Its not the tenents fault that they end up in a 3 or 4 bed house affter the kids grow up and leave home. The local authorities need a system where tenents are house and moved according to their need. Realistically this needs huge resources, and a lot more 1 and 2 bed council apartments. I cant see such a system implemented for at least 15 years or more.

I dont think there will be a massive uptake by tenants (with spare rooms) in council houses as -- 1. If they really wanted to rent a room say to a mate or relative for cash on the quiet, they are already be doing it. -- 2. Most don't want a stranger in their house for various reasons. --3. A high number are doing work for cash already so dont need the money eg. Child minding, pet sitting, cleaning, taxi, etc..

Ps. I think this topic should move to Current Affairs/IMHO perhaps ?

Murph85

So they get a free house or as good as, and can now pocket an extra 14k from it ? Welcome to Ireland!

Lionel Fusco

Absolutely disgraceful these council tenants should be thrown out forthwith and put into a 1 bed and forced to work 12 hours a day breaking stones for their dole money.

Girl Geraldine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545219#Comment_120545219

Well that is fine in theory but there would be all hell breaking loose if you tried to actually do it. A family in a house 20 or 30 years and now the parents getting older, and some beaurocrat swans in trying to kick them out into a granny flat. Imagine it. they will be getting every parish pump councillor, TD and PBP nut on their case, and getting emotionaly write ups in local and national rags, and local radio whinging that they spent 30 years or whatever making the place a home and now in their golden years the council are kicking them out into a tiny flat miles from the community they lived in for decades.

Whats more, a lot of council tenancies are inheritable.

To go doing this on a national scale just wouldn't fly politically. The politicians would not have it as opposing it would be a good vote getter.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545219#Comment_120545219

They were saying soon radio this morning that this may help house 28,000 people. That is pie in the sky stuff if they think anywhere near that will happen.

Dublin city has loads of dilapidated flats that could be renovated for empty nesters. It is nonsense that the taxpayer funds income generating properties for anyone.

Girl Geraldine

That is grant looking at the numbers, but I doubt too many empty nesters who have invested a lot of effort and money in making a home in one house, will be too enthusiastic about moving into a small flat with nowhere near the amenities of where they currently live.

It would be a socially negative move as you would more than likely be extracting people from their community and plonking them somewhere else. At a time in life when they might not be as able to get around as easily as in their younger years.

It is ageism is what it is.

sydthebeat

As ideas go, it's not a bad one

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545296#Comment_120545296

Well, aside from the clear exaggerations, you're not too far off them mark. It is disgraceful for a council tenant to be in a property surplus to their needs. So, a single person, or a couple with 1 minor in a 2 bed apartment is fine, but the same people in a 3 bed house is surplus to their needs. The latter situation should be placed into the former and free up the additional space for those needing it. Council properties should not be homes, they should be accommodation suitable to the needs of the person/people in a family unit. That's what the tade-off off for practically free housing should be.

Any able bodied person on welfare should be put to work. Lifetime dolers have a negative impact on society as they are drains and leeches. They should be making some contribution, like the rest of us mugs. If that means breaking stones for roads, then let them at it. Better than their spawn breaking windows with stones.

RonanG86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545320#Comment_120545320

They 'think' that 14,000 - 28,000 houses are under occupied (shouldn't they know this?), that's where the figure is coming from. If 1,000 of them went for it voluntarily or were in a financial position where this was worthwhile I'd be surprised. Total nonsense. And if poor old John & Mary accidentally rent to a scumbag who causes massive ASB in the estate, and resists attempts to evict them. Is that their fault? Do they get the call from the HLO?

As for "WHY ARE THERE UNDEROCCUPIED COUNCIL HOUSES!? DISGRACE!", it's because most Councils are suffering from a worse shortage of smaller 1 & 2 bed units than family 3+ bed units. This wasn't a problem in years gone by because people could just rent privately until they settled down, but now that option is out.

You want to downsize John & Mary now that their kids have moved out, and they're open to the idea, chances are what you'll do is take a 1 or 2 bed from a single individual or single parent who's been waiting for 5+ years and have a 3 bed that'll go to a family who's been waiting for 2-3 years (expand waiting times for Dublin or areas with low supply - but you get the gist).

Pawwed Rig

Evictions are not difficult for a rent a room to be fair. You just change the locks and send them a text while they are out. If they try to reenter the property it is breaking and entering and the Gardai will (or should) deal with it.

Just for comparison a marginal rate tax payer would need a pay increase of €29,167 to get €14k into their hand like this.

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545320#Comment_120545320

Around 2008 Dublin Council banned bedsits. A few of my mates were in them, and while they werent great, some were actually quite cosy, and a cheap place to live. I was paying 700 quid in a house share and my friend had a bedsit around the corner for 300. Since the ban, I have to ask, where did they go? They didn't disappear off the face of the earth. They do still exist surely?

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545074#Comment_120545074

on the first question - what happens if someone moves out of a council house their parents live in? that might free up a room; and you'd hardly evict a family for the sake of that spare room?

iwillhtfu

I'd be curious how many adults living at home with their parents will now become tenants. I can't see it making any impact on those genuinely homeless and surely if they did claim to have space they're marking themselves as being in a house larger than their needs.

PierreLeCake

I can't see it making a huge difference to homelessness but at this stage every little helps. If you are a Council tenant who is willing to rent a spare room chances are it was being done anyway although probably not been declared to Revenue just like as a lot of private homeowners.€14,000 a year tax-free sounds great but unless you are really squeezing tenants in to small council houses the chances are its just one room being rented out so at €500 -600 a month a tenant would really just be earning €6000 - €7200. You also have to live with a random stranger and as someone who has house shared in the past that can be a big headache depending on who you get. This rent money would tend to trickle back in to the economy rather than going abroad to Vulture funds.

Its also clever politically. I suspect most people in council houses vote Sein Fein and now here is the Government giving them free money so to speak.

I just wish the government would move a lot faster on doing something for small time landlords. I have to pay 51% tax on my rental income with all the attending bureaucracy on rental income that's only a few thousand more than the €14,000 rent a room scheme.

If Sein Fein come in to power I expect to see many more private landlords leave as they plan to bring in an eviction ban, force lower rents and do away with selling your house as a reason to evict tenants. Its only going to get worse for renters I am afraid

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545492#Comment_120545492

Eviction is a very emotive word and is not what should happen. It is giving people accomodation to suit their needs. In an ideal system there would be step up and step down properties depending on what stage people are at in their lives. By your logic a grandmother living on her own could theoretically have a 5 bed house funded by the taxpayers?

@LambshankRedemption the bedsit ban wasn't thought out very well. All it did was remove units from the market. The current standards (while well meaning and appropriate in a functioning market) are not much use to someone who cannot find a property.

I genuinely worry about the ability of this country to do anything is a manner that isn't massively wasteful. The solution to every problem is to throw money at it until the problem is not in the media anymore.

Gusser09

I presume their council rent will increase too? Haha. So if you are getting the dole for example you could potentially now get an extra 270 quid a week on top of that.

We are truly fucked. A total of 25 rentals available in the county of Kildare today. (Daft) House prices are through the roof and it's not in the sectors interests to build more houses and sell them for less profit. The supply and demand thing is a myth when it comes to the irish housing market. Builders and trades are only interested in gouging.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545498#Comment_120545498

Very few adults living with parents, I would imagine, would become tenants under the scheme since there would be little advantage to doing so.

magicbastarder

By your logic a grandmother living on her own could theoretically have a 5 bed house funded by the taxpayers?

i mentioned one spare room, not five, so that was not my logic.

but let's run with the idea. say you've a family, three kids two years apart in age each, living in a council house. it's feasible (that in a properly functioning housing market) that the occupancy of that house could drop by 3 over five years as each kid reaches a certain age; what would a sensible housing official do? they're not going to ask the family to move house every time a kid moves out.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545498#Comment_120545498

The answer will be in the fine print I guess but that's an obvious question alright. You could have a situation now where an adult child is living at home in local authority housing rent free which is fine as it goes. But under this scheme a) there might be an incentive to kick them out so as to monetise the room b) keep them but have the state subsidise their rent in some way.

The whole idea seems counter to the general concept of social housing and a kick in the teeth to those that scrimp and manage to buy their own gaff.

Guildenstern

In the UK and across wider Europe, social housing tenants have adequate properties such as sheltered housing schemes, to downsize to. Not so here because there just wasn't any long term policy put in place to meet their needs, beyond giving them the house in the first place.

More short term thinking although what also hasn't helped is our cultural attachment to the house, rather than to the apartment, something that affects the private market as well as the social sector.

More tweaking here to help source any 'new' bedspaces. Desperate situations means desperate measures. How do the Councils even know who lives in their properties, do they even carry out tenancy audits?

Lionel Fusco

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545532#Comment_120545532

The taxpayer is going to have to fund the building of all these step up step down properties you are talking about. it's pure fantasy land stuff the waiting lists are massive because of a shortage of social housing. It'll cost a hell of a lot more to build all these properties than it will to leave in auld one in a 4 bed until she dies.

Lionel Fusco

This state has just recorded an 8 billion tax surplus its clear that the so - called dole scroungers are not having any effect on the tax take and the problem of social housing tenants and dole scroungers largely exists in the heads of a few lunatics who post here. I even managed to get people to agree with me that council tenants should break rocks for 12 hours a day ffs!

The problem with social housing in this country is that there isn't enough of it the societal benefits from social housing far outweigh the perceived negatives and I say this as someone with a mortgage in a suburban town.

Quitelife

Councils & Corporations should be re accessing council houses every 2/3 years . If children have moved out etc parents should be relocated to smaller properties .

If the above was applied it would be a major help to housing crisis .

Its a bit mad people who never worked a day in thie lives have larger properties than they require in urban areas (for token rent ) whilst other people who work cant find anywhere to live.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545551#Comment_120545551

No but I cannot see too many with kids thinking that renting a room to a stranger is a good idea.

To run with your family of 3 kids. What should they get when they have 1 child? Should they immediately be given a 3/4 bed in anticipation of more children or should they be given what they need until baby number 2 arrives? How about if they keep having children? Should they keep getting a bigger and bigger house as they have more and more?

There is definitely a discussion to be had on the topic as it is a massive expense and taxpayers are the ones funding it. It is way too emotive for any political party to take on though.

enricoh

Over in England council tenants have to pay extra rent once the kids have flown the nest or else downsize into a smaller apartment.

In Ireland you can get 14k tax free instead, truly we are the land of milk and honey!

Murph85

They won't touch it with a bargepole here... but in the UK or Germany etc, you don't have this social housing giveway / farce... if you are young, run out of this country as quick as you can!

RonanG86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545492#Comment_120545492

Clearly on boards.ie you do because Council tenants are just cattle.

As I said up the page, leaving aside potentially asking people to leave their family home of 20+ years, what you'll do is fill up the 1 & 2 bed lists, which are longer than the 3+ bed lists in most areas, with downsizers. People will be waiting literally years to downsize and then at the expense of single people and single parents. Which would be fine if the private rented market wasn't a basketcase, but unfortunately it is.

In an 'ideal world', yeah people could effortlessly and quickly be moved between houses and it wouldn't be a big deal, but the housing market in Ireland is not an ideal world and hasn't been for donkeys years.

I'd also argue that in an ideal world John & Mary hanging on to a 3 bed built in the 1980s wouldn't matter, and even in our most unideal world, is really a minor thing compared with the consequences of literal decades of mismanagement from successive governments.

Gusser09

Lets say that Johnny living in a 3 bed decides to take this offer up and he moves Bob in who earns 50k per year.

I presume that Bob's salary will be taken into account when calculating the rent due on the property?

LOL.

Victor

One of the problems with council housing, especially older estates is that all the units are the same size. This means that to move to a smaller unit means moving to a different neighbourhood. Potentially that just reinforces stratification and social problems.

"Its not the tenents fault that they end up in a 3 or 4 bed house affter the kids grow up and leave home. The local authorities need a system where tenents are house and moved according to their need." - some councils have schemes where tenants that are over 55 can move to a smaller home

RonanG86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545659#Comment_120545659

Clearly not considering that Johnny can pocket up to €14,000 in tax-free rent from Bob. Not much point if the Council are going to get a big wedge of that as rent. EDIT: Although here's a thought, is it reckonable income for Johnny? Council could get their diff rent from it, I suppose.

There's also the issue to permission to reside. If you're moving into a Council house you're supposed to apply for this and the Council can and will refuse in certain circumstances. In case, for example, if I had decided to move into my ex-girlfriend's Council house when we were together despite the fact that I'm a home owner.

Do you have to get permission to reside for your tenant? What if they spectacularly fail Garda Clearance?

This has not been thought out.

RonanG86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545672#Comment_120545672

Any Council tenant can apply for a transfer on the basis of downsizing, afaik, but chances are they'll be waiting for a long time.

Gusser09

The housing crisis is rapidly catching up with the HSE in the shitshow stakes.

Guildenstern

'Navan has 1,439 applicants, with 646 applicants looking for one-bedroomed units, 523 seeking two-bed units, and 199 applicants wanting three-bedroomed units'.

Recently quoted in the Meath Chronicle. This is the norm across the country. The vast majority of applicants require 1 or 2 bed properties. In a country where we only really built 3, and now, 4 bed houses, to any scale.

At least, this is now recognised, so that's some progress.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545704#Comment_120545704

That's what irks me. We really need to take into account that a lot of people and couple with no kids would be more than happy with a 1 bed apartment of decent quality.

FFS we remove bedsits from the market which were perfectly suitable and good for people at certain stages of life.

That workedo ut well didn't it.

baldbear

I'm sure people with social homes are already renting out spare rooms?

DubCount

If social tenants have excess room capacity, they should be moved to smaller units.

Why should a social tenant receiving a home with extra bedrooms from the state for minimal rent, be allowed rent out space and personally profit from the state's property.

For that matter, why bother to buy your own home and pay your own mortgage when the state will let you stay in a property that is larger than you need and let you make money from the excess space they have provided you.

This is nuts.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545607#Comment_120545607

This needs to be said more. I'm paying a 34 year mortgage for a house I don't want in a town I dislike because I can't afford to live in Dublin. There are people in fine apartments a stone's throw from where the main office of my company is who get those apartments for a song.

I don't want people thrown onto the streets, but the social housing model needs to be updated.

Mrs OBumble

A marginal rate taxpayer who owns their own home can access this 14k the same way as a council tenant can.

Fred Cryton

The real scandal is how little council tenants are paying themelves to the council and how many pay nothing at all. Something like two thirds in DCC are in arrears.

This is totally out of line with public housing in other countries, a fact that goes unmentioned by our dominant left wing parties and media. Tenants should be forced to pay 20% of their income in rent, even as that income increases. And if they don't they need to be evicted like any other type of tenancy.

Now we have the absurd situation where the government not only allows them to live in the house free of charge, but also to earn a nice income for themselves using a State asset. Ridiculous and one of those "only in Ireland" things.

Danzy

The greatest challenge in the country at the moment is the housing and accommodation shortage.

Anything that alleviates it is welcome.

Does this have problems, certainly but the benefits significantly outweigh the cost.

There is a lot of self pity in the thread but no concrete alternatives.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545865#Comment_120545865

The point

Your head

You assume the marginal tax payer can afford to have a spare room to rent out. Many many cannot.

Emblematic

It does seem a bit unfair however given the crisis that's developed in the country, measures like these need to be made.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545926#Comment_120545926

Only 20% of their income? To rent a one bedroom apartment in the apartment block near my mother's house is 1500 a month. Let's do some number crunching...

The average wage in Ireland is (according to the CSO) about 44k a year. After tax, that would give a net monthly salary of about 2800 (based on a PWC tax calculation). 1500 euros is a whooping 53% of that net monthly income. 20% is a pittance compared to that.

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545786#Comment_120545786

Agree with some points but it doesnt make sense to start uprooting families and moving them if they end up with a spare room.

Maybe the government should look at a similar scheme to the UK where housing benefit is reduced, ie a higher rent is charged if the property has spare bedrooms. That reduces the cost to the public purse and doesnt disrupt families or communities. Probably easier, cheaper and quicker to administer than building smaller homes.

Will the 14k income affect other welfare benefits that are means tested?

Lionel Fusco

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545607#Comment_120545607

The vast majority of people in social housing are in work. More lazy ignorant stereotyping.

Lionel Fusco

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545926#Comment_120545926

What happens to people who are evicted from social housing? Do they disappear?

Lionel Fusco

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545954#Comment_120545954

All that proves is that the private rental market is far too expensive and strict rent control is urgently needed.