Pity the Government as they try to juggle the competing interests of tenants and landlords while looking to inject new vigour into a flagging housebuilding programme.
Tenants rights groups and Opposition public representatives have been quick to criticise the package of measures announced earlier this week that will from next year ease rules on rent rises on new tenancies in rent pressure zones that will now extend the length of the State.
Yes, they have also tried to firm up some tenants’ rights, but there is a clear understanding that the changes were driven by the need to encourage investment by private sector landlords.
So the landlords are presumably happy? Not a bit of it.
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The Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) – the landlord industry body – says it has “grave concerns that the upcoming changes will overwhelmingly harm rental supply and drive private landlords out of the market”.
In particular, it is not happy that landlords will be classified by tenancies rather than properties, so they could be seen as having multiple tenancies in a shared house or a building divided into separate living units.
The issue here is that anyone with four or more tenancies will be seen as a large landlord and thus barred from “no fault” evictions.
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The IPOA also warns that property values could slump 40 per cent if they are obliged to sell without ousting tenants – a restriction, it says, undermines landlords’ property rights.
While the new rules strip out the 2 per cent cap on rent rises, regardless of inflation, this is limited only to new tenancies after the rules come into force next year. That, landlords say, is likely to lead to “economic evictions” and landlord exits from the market where those rents are significantly below the market rate.
IPOA chairwoman Mary Conway, who also, predictably, rails against expanding the rent pressure zone concept State-wide, says: “The new legislative environment could exacerbate housing insecurity for many vulnerable renters.”
Tenants will equally argue that the additional tiering of the rental market will only make their lives more complex and uncertain. And allowing more room to increase rents that are already unaffordable for many hardly seems to be the vote-getter the Government would presumably hope it is.
It seems that, in looking to be seen as even-handed, the Government runs the risk of exacerbating issues in a market that is already seen as failing to deliver for either side.
